Marion Memorial Bridge, pictured before construction of Nickajack Lake. Click to enlarge.
When I was growing up, going to my grandparents’ house really did involve a trip “over the river and through the woods,” just like the song. Every few weeks, we would visit them at their farm outside Jasper, TN. Before Interstate 24 was completed – bisecting their farm – our route was Cummings Highway (a.k.a. U.S. routes 41-64-72) which took us through the woods of the Tennessee River Gorge and across the river on the Marion Memorial Bridge.
The opening of the Marion Memorial Bridge in the early 1930’s provided a boost to transportation between Chattanooga and points west. It was part of a $1,000,000 highway between Jasper and Chattanooga that had been advocated by Hamilton County Judge Will Cummings.
The September 2, 1930 Chattanooga Times reported that the site for the bridge was selected over another location at Kelly’s Ferry. The legislature had originally authorized the bridge to be built at the ferry location on the piers placed by the Memphis-Charleston Railroad Company. In 1929, the legislature modified the plan in favor of a site downstream of Hale’s Bar Dam, where the river was more narrow and had more stable bedrock.
The new bridge and its piers rose high above an area filled with history. Frank P. Fletcher wrote of that history in a 1936 report filed at the Chattanooga-Hamilton County Bicentennial Library. At its eastern end, Running Water Town had once been the domain of Dragging Canoe and the Chickamaugans. Union soldiers had crossed the river on pontoon bridges during the Civil War. In easy view from the bridge was Hales’s Bar Dam, which furnished hydroelectric power to Chattanooga several years before TVA.
The western end of the bridge was anchored to a rocky bluff. The eastern approach, though, required several piers of ascending height. I recall that as we headed home from visiting my grandparents, the descent from the bridge was almost like riding a roller coaster. Crossing each pier, our station wagon seemed to become airborne for a few seconds.
The Marion Memorial Bridge was dedicated in memory of the war dead of Marion County. To offset the $475,871 initial cost and on-going maintenance, a 50 cent toll was imposed on each vehicle crossing the bridge. My mother recalled that one of my grandmother’s second or third cousins, John Lawson, worked at the toll booth of the bridge.
The toll remained in effect at the Marion Memorial Bridge and seven others in the state until 1947. According to the February 5, 1947 Chattanooga Times, the levies at some of the bridges were failing to pay the cost of collecting them. However, the bridge near Jasper was found to be the most profitable. The February 7, 1947 Times reported that John Lawson, chief collector at the Marion County toll bridge, took a telephone call from Gov. McCord’s administration instructing him to collect no more tolls.
Motorists from Nashville, Memphis, and Huntsville were then able to enjoy a free ride across the bridge. U.S. routes 41, 64, and 72 took the tourists on through the Tennessee River Gorge, where roadside America attractions such as Pete’s Cider, The Jungle reptile farm, and Mullins Cove Restaurant awaited. Traffic was often heavy in the days before Interstate 24, and much of the route was a two lane highway. I remember that we once got stuck behind a slow-moving pickup truck whose driver apparently didn’t realize that his left turn signal was blinking.
In the mid-1960’s, the construction of Nickajack Lake required that the Marion Memorial Bridge be raised in order to provide minimum clearance for river traffic. Using two hydraulic jacks at each end of the truss, workers raised the bridge a total of 21 feet. The new Interstate 24 bridge carried all east-west traffic until the Marion Memorial Bridge was situated at its new elevation.
In recent years, the Tennessee Department of Transportation has been making preparations to replace the Marion Memorial Bridge with a new steel plate girder bridge. The March 22, 2003 Chattanooga Times Free Press reported that the state was offering the old bridge for sale, though no buyers had stepped forward. The bidding process is underway for the replacement, according to the TDOT Web site.
If you have memories of the Marion Memorial Bridge, please send me an e-mail at jolleyh@bellsouth.net.
Judge Will Cummings (1870-1969) was a promoter of area civil works projects. Click to enlarge.