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Editor’s Note: This is the follow-up to Lookback’s first entry on May 10.

By Tim Ruzek

Structural challenges also led to closures of eastside Austin’s overhead bridge affecting residents in that area significantly.

Austin’s historic 1908 tornado and hailstorm blew away the bridge’s western approach.

In June 1913, the bridge was closed for its east approach being rotted. It wasn’t replaced until February 1914.

In February 1917, the county closed the bridge for being in a dangerous condition that could lead a heavy wind to blow it over. Many spots had iron nearly eaten through by rust.

At the same time, the county considered creating a tunnel under the railyard to replace the bridge but deemed it too expensive and something for the city.

Debate ignited again over responsibility for the bridge – the county, city or railroad? The county attorney said the county should not have built the bridge in 1895 nor have to rebuild it.

When soldiers returned by train to Austin in September 1917, hundreds stood on the condemned bridge, gathering on its south side. Luckily, they had not stood on its north side as locals later thought that might have led to many being injured or killed.

“It was an oversight that this (bridge) had not been closed to travel,” the Herald wrote.

By September 1918, the county had gotten out of the bridge issue, leading the city to investigate its condition. Then the city completely closed the bridge, mainly due to two, heavily rusted spans.

“It is clear that it was necessary to close the bridge but it is also clear that this bridge is not only a convenience but almost a necessity,” the Herald wrote.

In December 1918, Austin’s mayor reached an agreement with the railroad to split the $6,600 cost of a new bridge. The mayor wanted approaches removed to keep people off the bridge because barricades and “Danger” signs kept getting removed.

Some councilmen fought to keep the bridge open for kids going to school and others who would need to walk a long distance around. Some believed rumbling trains proved more of a risk to the bridge than people.

In January 1919, the first carload of material arrived for a new bridge.

“This will be good news to the people of the Fourth Ward who have either had to take a chance on the bridge falling down with them or being run over in the yard,” the Herald wrote Jan. 9, 1919.

Five months later, Austin’s mayor wrote the railroad leader, pleading for work to get going.

Not until June 1919 did all bridge materials arrive in Austin, and then bridge builders came two months later.

This new version of the bridge opened Oct. 4, 1919.

While many treasured the bridge, it wasn’t enjoyed much in the winter.

“That was pretty cold going for little folks in December, January and February,” a Herald article stated July 7, 1936.

By the mid-1970s, the railroad was seeking to remove the bridge for liability reasons after the rail industry’s decline. The city chose to keep the bridge open and pay all costs of upkeep after finding that 80 to 100 people crossed the bridge in an 8-hour period.

By the 1980s, the railroad’s presence in Austin had declined greatly. Some called the overhead bridge an “eyesore.”

Talks of removing the bridge resurfaced in 1983 when a contractor removing rail ties said he could remove the bridge for salvage. At the time, the county owned the bridge; the city was responsible for it; and the railroad owned the land under it.

In 1985, the city closed the bridge for safety, leading people to push for saving it, including with a 500-signature petition. At that time, the railroad owned the bridge and the city maintained it and held its liability. The city was looking at replacing the bridge with a sidewalk through the railyard.

Over the coming years, people wrote in the Herald about saving the bridge and reminiscing about it, such as watching circus trains unload near the depot and walking on bridge rails.

“Some call it an ‘eyesore,’ others call it ‘junk,’ ” wrote long-time railroad worker Richard Kelly in 1989. “One man’s junk is another man’s treasure; it’s all in the eye of the beholder.”

Kelly described the thrill of being in position on the bridge above passing steam engines to get “engulfed with cinders and smoke.”

In 1988, the railroad’s 20-stall roundhouse, built in 1874, was demolished as part of a railyard cleanup.

Four years later, the council approved removing the bridge, leading to another effort to save it.

“Talks of dismantling the historic overhead railroad bridge on Austin’s east side has touched a nerve,” the Herald wrote in 1992.

In 1994, the council finally approved bids to dismantle the bridge in part to clear the way for extending Fourth Avenue through the railyard, which never happened due to railroad opposition.

Bridge sections were sold in 1995 to the golf course, with the rest moved to the nature center and Todd Park. The council had declined requests from individuals to buy bridge sections, opting not to sell to private groups offering limited or no public use.