The Bridge of Progress

In 1927, the old wooden wagon bridge over the San Lorenzo River at Brackney was replaced by a “fine bridge” with “pleasing features” dubbed “The Bridge of Progress.” The dedication, pictured here, took place on Sunday May 8, 1927, with a dedication ball, sponsored by the San Lorenzo Valley Chamber of Commerce, being held the night before at Felton Hall.

   

Image: Carole Hendrick Collection, San Lorenzo Valley Museum.

For the bridge dedication an amplifier was obtained from San Francisco at a cost of $200 to “carry to all ears within a radius of one mile the voices of the singers and speakers.”

A parade of transportation vehicles typical of the period 1840 – 1927 crossed the bridge in celebration. A pack train of mules, a stage coach, a logging team, firefighting apparatus, automobiles including a “prehistoric Ford” and a 1909 Hupmobile, buggies and carts, just to name a few.

The bridge was built by Carleton C. Gildersleeve at a cost to the county of $60,000. Gildersleeve’s daughter, Elizabeth, christened the concrete span and William T. Jeter, former mayor of Santa Cruz and master of ceremonies, introduced Senator James Phelan among other notables.

Image: Frank Perry Collection, San Lorenzo Valley Museum.

Five years later Gildersleeve would be called on to build another bridge, just north of the “Bridge of Progress,” at Brackney. In December 1932, a heavily laden lumber truck from Boulder Creek carrying a load of posts was crossing the bridge. Just thirty-five feet from the southern end of the 140 foot span the truck crashed into the side of the bridge which suddenly failed and closed up “like a partly opened jack knife.” The truck dropped sixty feet into the river below and was showered with debris from the bridge; heavy timbers and steel beams. Miraculously the two occupants suffered only non-life-threatening injuries.

The truck was demolished and the bridge was “reduced to a mass of wreckage.” No through traffic between Felton and Ben Lomond was possible in the weeks ahead until the new 150-foot bridge was completed on schedule in April 1933, “a credit to the county and a monument to the supervisors and all who had anything to do with its construction.”