Toll Bridge & Old Bridgeport

Duane's take

Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about the Toll Bridge and Old Bridgeport, out in Wise County. Now, some stories start with a town. This one starts with a problem: specifically, a river standing between a mail route and its destiny.

When the Butterfield Overland Mail was pushing through this stretch of Texas, running letters and passengers all the way from St. Louis to San Francisco between 1858 and 1861, the West Fork of the Trinity River sat right in the middle of things like it had something to prove. And a crossing?

Well, a crossing was a necessity. That's not my word; that's just the plain truth of it. So on February 11, 1860, a man named Colonel W.

H. Hunt obtained a charter and built a toll bridge, right here, fifty yards west of where you're standin' now. Fifty yards.

Close enough that you could almost reach back and touch it. But history has a way of pulling the rug. The Overland Mail ceased operating when the Civil War began, and not long after, the bridge itself collapsed.

Gone. Just like that. Now here's the thing about people who settle near a river crossing; they tend to stick around even after the crossing is gone.

A settlement had taken root here, and it wasn't going anywhere. Then in 1873, a Decatur merchant by the name of Charles Cates came along and spanned that same river with an iron bridge. Iron.

Not the old material, but something that meant to last. And the place kept on living. Twenty years later, in 1893, the Rock Island Railroad built out to this point, and when a railroad arrives, towns have a habit of movin' toward it.

This one did. The town picked up and shifted, followin' that iron track like it was always the plan. But it kept the name.

Kept it through the collapsed bridge, through the war, through the decades, through the move. Bridgeport. Some names just hold on tighter than the ground beneath them.

What the marker says

When Butterfield Overland Mail traversed this area (1858-61) on St. Louis to San Francisco route, a crossing over West Fork of the Trinity was a necessity. Colonel W. H. Hunt on February 11, 1860, obtained a charter and built a toll bridge here (50 yards west). The Overland Mail ceased operating as Civil War began. The bridge soon collapsed. However, a settlement had begun here, and in 1873 Charles Cates, a Decatur merchant, spanned the river with an iron bridge. When the Rock Island Railroad built to this point in 1893, town moved but retained historic name. (1972)