The Old Union Crossing Covered Bridge is a privately owned wood & metal combination style covered bridge that spans the West Fork of the Little River in DeKalb County, Alabama, United States. It is located on an access road between Shady Grove Dude Ranch and Cloudmont Ski & Golf Resort on Lookout Mountain, which is off County Road 614 near the town of Mentone. Coordinates are 34°32′3.51″N 85°35′56.47″W / 34.5343083°N 85.5990194°W / 34.5343083; -85.5990194 (34.534308, -85.599019).
Originally built circa 1863, the 90-foot (27 m) bridge is a Stringer truss construction over three spans. Its current WGCB number is 01-25-A, formerly 01-25-02. The Old Union Crossing Covered Bridge is one of five existing covered bridges in Alabama built before 1950 not listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It was rebuilt in 1980 over an existing cable bridge from the late 19th century.
This bridge has also been called the Tallasseehatchee Covered Bridge, but these are actually two different structures. A couple of sources contradict time and place of bridge movement if both names applied to the same bridge. According to the current owners as well as most sources, the Old Union Crossing Covered Bridge was moved from Lincoln, Alabama in 1972 to its current location near Mentone. In reference to a document released by the Alabama Historical Commission in the early 1980s which lists all historic covered bridges in the state as well as a September 4, 1975 news article from The Anniston Star, the Tallasseehatchee Covered Bridge (also spelled 'Tallahatchee') was moved from Wellington, Alabama to Piedmont, Alabama (both in Calhoun County) in early September 1975 for becoming part of a reconstructed pioneer village and Appalachian crafts center. Unfortunately, this project eventually ceased. No information about the Tallasseehatchee Covered Bridge after the move nor of its continued existence is mentioned. It is most likely that this bridge is no longer extant.
Read more about Old Union Crossing Covered Bridge: History, See Also
Famous quotes containing the words union, crossing, covered and/or bridge:
“I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way under the Constitution. The sooner the national authority can be restored; the nearer the Union will be “the Union as it was.””
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)
“Nature is a setting that fits equally well a comic or a mourning piece. In good health, the air is a cordial of incredible virtue. Crossing a bare common, in snow puddles, at twilight, under a clouded sky, without having in my thoughts any occurrence of special good fortune, I have enjoyed a perfect exhilaration. I am glad to the brink of fear.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Every act of the man inscribes itself in the memories of his fellows, and in his own manners and face. The air is full of sounds; the sky, of tokens; the ground is all memoranda and signatures; and every object covered over with hints, which speak to the intelligent.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“It launch’d forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself,
Ever unreeling them, ever tirelessly speeding them.
And you O my soul where you stand,
Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space,
Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the spheres to connect them,
Till the bridge you will need be form’d, till the ductile anchor hold,
Till the gossamer thread you fling catch somewhere, O, my soul.”
—Walt Whitman (1819–1892)