State of Neglect
The Volunteer States rotting history
ABOVE: A one hundred plus year old bridge spans the Duck River in Old Stone Fort State Park; Manchester, TN.
A recent video posted to the Nashville Banner’s YouTube page highlights the plight of a bridge located in Old Stone Fort State Park in Manchester, TN. One of the most disturbing aspects of the story is that the State was actively trying to cover up its intention to tear down and replace the structure. Accusations include the use of tactics such as having the Highway Department close the bridge to motor traffic based on fraudulent inspections and printing notices in local papers in such small print that they were illegible.
Actions like these are to be expected from low-level bureaucrats and are nothing new. The only reason they haven’t yet succeeded is because of residents banding together and, so far, putting the government in check. The organization, called Save our Bridge, has brought attention to the state plans by letter writing and getting the Nashville press to cover the issue.
ABOVE: Re-erected by the Nashville Bridge Company in 1923-24 this steel bridge spans the Collins River on Great Falls Road between the small community of Rock Island and Rock Island State Park.
While the Old Stone Fort Bridge isn’t in danger of falling, (yet) there are other structures all over the state that are in danger of being lost. The loss of every bridge, building, artifact, and linear foot of old roadway means our Tennessee heritage is eroded a little more. It means we lose a little piece of what our state is and has been. It is not enough for us to say that these works will live on in our memory through the remaining drawings, pictures, and videos that exist of them. That is not true. Once they are gone physically, they will soon leave living memory and then they are lost forever to time.
“... once the structures are gone, and that generation who are connected to those structures are gone, the stories go with them as if the structures were never there.”
These works have endured time to make it to the present. As an enlightened society, we have an obligation to preserve them for future generations to behold. It is one thing to read a story about how things were in the past, it is something entirely different to stand where past generations stood and see what past generations saw.
ABOVE: A concrete bridge spanning the Duck River on Highway 269 between Normandy and Wartrace, TN.
We are merely caretakers for these structures, they do not belong to us. They belong to time. It is our duty to care for them. It is one thing to fall short in our efforts to preserve our unique past, but it is a travesty to turn our backs on it and let it fall into rack and ruin. Unfortunately, that seems to be the preferred option for handling historic preservation by municipalities in the state of Tennessee.
Progress doesn’t mean tearing down every old thing we encounter. It means caring for the past by giving it a place in our present, so it is preserved for the future. Yes, it is harder to do it this way. But it is what should be done.
