DUANE
Duane's take
Here's the story as the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. We're talking about the Regency Suspension Bridge, out near the near-extinct town of Regency, down in Mills County — about four and a half miles south of where you're standing. Now settle in, because this river has had a few things to say over the years, and not all of it was gentle.
The Colorado River has been crossing this stretch of Texas longer than any bridge has stood over it, but folks in the area finally decided to do something about the fording situation back in 1903, when they built the first bridge right here between Mills and San Saba counties, put there to serve the ranchers and farmers who needed to move themselves, their animals, and their livelihoods from one bank to the other. For a while, it served its purpose. Then came May 9th, 1924.
The bridge fell into the river. And when it went down, it took with it a horse, several cattle, and a young boy named Raymond Burns Jernigan — born June 28th, 1914. You sit with that a moment.
The Colorado didn't ask permission. Well, they built another bridge. And that one?
A 1936 flood destroyed it. At that point, some folks might've looked at this river and reconsidered the whole enterprise. But not the people of Regency.
In 1939, they put up what stands today — and here's the part that ought to stop you in your tracks — ninety percent of the labor was done by hand. Ninety percent. No grand machinery hauling cable across a Texas river gorge.
Just hands. The result was the Regency Suspension Bridge, and it became, the marker says plainly, the pride of the area. By the 1940s, the young people of the region were gathering there to picnic, to dance, and to sing.
A bridge built by hand becoming a place to celebrate — that's a kind of poetry the Colorado didn't get to take away. Paved roads eventually bypassed it, as paved roads tend to do to things worth keeping, and yet here it survives — one of the last suspension bridges in all of Texas. Three bridges.
Two gone. One standing. Built by hand and outlasting everything the river threw at it.
What the marker says
(near extinct town of Regency, 4.4 mi. S) This area's first Colorado River bridge was built in 1903 between Mills and San Saba counties to serve area ranchers and farmers. The bridge fell into the river on May 9, 1924, killing Raymond Burns Jernigan (b. June 28, 1914), his horse, and several cattle. Its replacement was destroyed in a 1936 flood. Erected in 1939 by 90 percent hand labor, the Regency Suspension Bridge became the pride of the area. Youths gathered there in the 1940s to picnic, dance, and sing. Bypassed by paved roads, it survives as one of the last suspension bridges in Texas. (1976, 1997)