Plemons Bridge

Duane's take

Well, here's my telling of what the official marker has to say — so let's set the record straight and let the story breathe. May of 1926. Two months.

That's all it took. Two months after oil was discovered in Hutchinson County — two months after the city of Borger roared up out of the Texas Panhandle dust like a wildfire with a business plan — the county commissioners were already sitting around a table, signing a contract with the Austin Bridge Company of Dallas. They had a problem, you see, and the problem had a name: the Canadian River.

Now, the Canadian River at that time was not the kind of thing you just drove across on a Tuesday. Undammed and unrepentant, that river could spread itself out over a mile wide. A mile.

And when it flooded, crossing it wasn't just inconvenient — it was treacherous. And even on its best behavior, the wide riverbed was riddled with quicksand that would swallow a wheel, and mud that would keep it. There were two new towns on either side of the situation — Stinnett to the west, Borger to the east — and right in the middle, at a settlement called Plemons, was the spot where Dixon Creek emptied into the Canadian River.

They called it Dixon Point. And that is exactly where they decided to build. The Austin Bridge Company got to work, and when they were done, they had assembled something worth talking about.

Thirty riveted and bolted Warren pony trusses with verticals — the most common historic bridge design, sure, but here's the thing that made Plemons Bridge distinctive: nobody had ever strung that many of them together into one long bridge. Thirty trusses, each one roughly eighty feet long, the steel members stamped from Bethlehem Steel up in Pennsylvania and Colorado Fuel and Iron Company out of Colorado. Add in the approaches, and you've got yourself 2,471 feet of bridge — one lane wide, sixteen feet of clearance — stretching over the spot where a mile-wide river used to dare you to try it.

The whole undertaking cost one hundred and thirty-five thousand dollars. And the Austin Bridge Company wasn't just going to hand that over to Hutchinson County and tip their hat. They ran it as a toll bridge until the cost came back to them.

You wanted to walk across on your own two feet? That'd be ten cents. Riding in a one-horse buggy?

Thirty-five cents. Rolling across in an automobile, feeling modern and prosperous? One dollar.

One dollar to cross a bridge that, just months before, had been nothing but a muddy, quicksand-laced stretch of river that could swallow you whole. The Plemons Bridge has long since been replaced as the route of choice for Hutchinson County travelers. The world moved on, as it tends to do.

But that bridge is still standing out there at Dixon Point, one lane, thirty trusses, 2,471 feet of Texas stubbornness — a Recorded Texas Historic Landmark as of 2009 — and an artifact of those first wild days when two months and a barrel of oil could change everything about a place. Some bridges carry traffic. This one carries time.

What the marker says

In May 1926, two months after the discovery of oil in Hutchinson County led to establishment of the city of Borger, county commissioners awarded a contract to the Austin Bridge Co. of Dallas for construction of a bridge to cross the Canadian River. The bridge was located at Dixon Point - where Dixon Creek empties into the Canadian River - at the settlement of Plemons, between the newly-formed towns of Stinnett and Borger. At the time, the undammed Canadian River spanned widths of over a mile, and was treacherous to cross during flood periods; even when the river was manageable the wide riverbed contained perilous patches of quicksand and frustrating mud. The bridge was built at a cost of $135,000 as a toll bridge, operated by the Austin Bridge Co., until the cost of the bridge was recouped. Pedestrians were charged 10 cents to cross the bridge, a one-horse buggy cost 35 cents, and driving an automobile across brought a charge of one dollar. The bridge is one lane, with a 16-foot clearance for traffic. Steel members of the bridge are stamped from Bethlehem Steel in Pennsylvania and Colorado Fuel and Iron Co. in Colorado. The bridge is composed of thirty riveted and bolted Warren pony trusses with verticals, each approximately 80 feet long. Although the Warren pony truss is the most common historic bridge design, the distinctive feature of this bridge was the incorporation of such a large number of this type of truss into one long bridge. Including approaches, the bridge is 2471 feet long. Although the Plemons Bridge has been replaced as the route of choice of Hutchinson County travelers over the Canadian River, it remains as an artifact of the early days of Hutchinson County history. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 2009