DUANE
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Duane's take
The way the marker tells it, here's the story of the Regency Suspension Bridge, and it's a good one. Now, the Colorado River has a long memory, and a short temper. Before this bridge ever existed, folks trying to cross here kept running into the same problem.
Floods. A series of them, tragic ones, washing out crossing after crossing. However many times people tried to tame that stretch of river with a bridge, the river had other ideas.
So San Saba and Mills Counties decided to do something about it together. Two counties, one problem, one solution. They joined up and built a bridge worthy of the challenge, and they named it for the Mills County community of Regency.
The Austin Bridge Company, out of Dallas, took on the job and finished construction in October of 1939. Now here's where the story gets interesting. This isn't just any bridge.
The road deck hangs, suspended, from two steel cables. Each one of those cables measures three and a quarter inches in diameter, and each one is made up of four hundred and seventy-five strands of galvanized wire. Stop and think about that for a moment.
Four hundred and seventy-five strands twisted together, holding you up over that same river that swallowed every crossing that came before. The Texas Department of Transportation restored it in 1999, and today the Regency Suspension Bridge stands as one of the last suspension bridges in Texas still open to vehicular traffic. The Colorado River is still out there, still running, still remembering.
But so is this bridge.
What the marker says
After a series of tragic floods washed out earlier Colorado River crossings here, San Saba and Mills Counties jointly built this bridge, named for the Mills County community of Regency. The Austin Bridge Company of Dallas completed construction in October 1939. The road deck hangs suspended from two steel cables, each measuring three-and-a quarter inches in diameter and consisting of 475 strands of Galvanized wire. Restored by the Texas Department of Transportation in 1999, this is one of the last suspension bridges open to vehicular traffic in Texas. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 2019