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Old Town Bridge

Tennessee, US

Old Town Bridge

The Old Town Bridge in Franklin, Tennessee was a "frame bridge across Brown Creek near its junction with the Big Harpeth River." It was built by U.S. soldiers in 1801. It carried the Harpeth River branch of the Natchez Trace over Brown's Creek. The bridge was rebuilt several times subsequently, but

was dismantled some time before 1988. Only the limestone abutments remained when the site was surveyed in 1988. The bridge is "one of the oldest remaining man-made bridges in Tennessee". A photograph of the bridge is available which shows the "structure consisted of massive masonry abutments with a short pole bridge suspended between them. Pole bridges were probably the most common type of bridge erected in frontier days and are still used today for simple county bridges. These bridges consist merely of poles (trees or logs) extending from one abutment to another with a deck of saplings or planks laid across these poles. Obviously these could be quite primitive with the ground or a natural feature such as a rock shelf serving as the abutments, but they could only be used for short spans. Some pole bridges used log cribs filled with rock and dirt as abutments." This is considered to be the...

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