A Century of Achievement - continued 

      1927: Too much for the bridge

The old Main Street bridge over Bean Creek had stood for many years -- and people knew that it was getting to be inadequate for the loads that modern trucks were putting on it in 1927. Still, Carl Williams was not too concerned when he started over the bridge with the truck's owner R.C. Rubert and his son and Carl. And, with fifteen tons of cement on board.

He almost made it. The cab of the truck did make it across, but the cement mostly wound up on the bottom of the nearly-dry bed of Bean Creek, along with the bridge.

It was the second bridge to fall in the spot; an earlier one had taken the same trip in 1881.

The Lenawee County Road Commission quickly responded by building a temporary footbridge across the span, north of the site of the old bridge, and plans were made to build a new, modern bridge.

But getting the bridge in would be an adventure. Work started soon, on September 24, under the direction of Clifford Lord of Clayton. On November 26,  there was a late season heavy thunderstorm that dumped a lot of water on the area. The creek came up quickly, along with many others in the area; west of town, at the M-14 (now US-127) crossing there was a foot of water on the road. The temporary footbridge, which connected the east and west sides of town, was nearly swept away in the high water, which was probably as deep as Bean Creek ever got in the century.

The rebuilding went ahead quickly. A wooden structure was thrown over the bridge site, to make it easier for the workmen to work, and by the end of February, 1928, the new bridge was more or less completed, and workmen were paving, leveling and grading the approaches. To help celebrate the prospective reopening of the bridge, the Hudson Exchange Club scheduled a March 6 dance on the new concrete surface. Without a lot of other ceremony, the new bridge was opened to traffic on March 16.

   The new bridge served the city until the 1998 rebuilding of Main Street, when it was replaced.
 

OOPS! A fifteen-ton load of cement took down the Main Street bridge over Bean Creek in 1927. Bean Creek was nearly dry when the bridge dropped, but it's highest levels of a century would impede the rebuilding later that year.