McCool's Creek Bridge

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Very few in my generation and younger ever knew this bridge existed across McCools Creek. I know of the new one and the one just prior to it. I also know one existed next to it many years ago and became a road side park with tables. However, out near the mouth of the Creek there existed a horse and buggy road that evidently ran along the top of the River Bank.

One day in 2009, a friend recommended we go arrowhead hunting along the river near McCool's Creek. As we got down near the mouth of the creek I was looking along the bank of the river, and decided to walk up to the topside. Whammo, low and behold I discovered there was a bridge across the creek. "Well, yow" he said. I stopped looking for arrowheads and was totally fascinated by the bridge. He said it went back to the 1800's, was made in Cleveland, Ohio, and at one time had a name plate on it. Said he had walked across it many years ago when he was much younger.

Then I realized why the road just east of where another bridge once stood across Four Mile Creek split, one part went south towards now US 42 and the other flared out along the bank just above the river. I was also totally impressed by the rock work on the abutments. While they were submerged in water when I first discovered them, I also knew they had to have been built in the dry season of the late summer and fall when no water was in the creek. BEFORE THE DAMS. There were only a few rocks missing from the south abutment and basically none from the north one.

Unfortunately, I did not have my camera, but the next time I returned a year or so later after several floods a large section of the rocks had caved in. I have captured several pictures over the years up to the time when DOW CORNING salvaged the Bridge, intact, and gave it to the City of Carrollton.

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From a Facebook post by Lee Hanlon