Wooden Bridges of Panama City

Maybe the recent chatting and visiting could be called "The Bridges of Panama City" - - those of us who remember the old wooden bridges that until replaced by the currently existing bridges in the forties (4th Street Bridge 1945)

and into fifties (Tarpon Dock Bridge 1951)

spanned Massalina Bayou at Tarpon Dock and 4th Street.

In our Time there was also a wooden bridge spanning Watson Bayou at "The Glen" - - which was the name of a tavern on the bayou at that location, so it was called the "Glen Bridge"

At its east end, on the Millville side, (the arrows point to the spot) the old wooden bridge was a few yards north of where it is now. It was at E 5th Street, and the

closer map shows the actual platting down to the water's edge, where the old wooden Glen Bridge's east end was.

Yesterday we drove down so I could photograph the "new" bridge's date marker, but I could not find one. I don't remember well enough to say for absolute certain, but I think the sides of the new concrete bridge were originally like the sides of the 4th Street Bridge with date markers, and the fairly recent rework of the Watson Bayou Bridge did away with those old style sides. Anyway, as I say, I saw no date markings.

I did manage to snap a photo from the east side, facing west, on E. 5th Street in what is now marked Whittington Park,

(which to me was always Old Orchard) where E. 5th Street on the Millville side dead-ends at what was the east end of Glen Bridge.

We remember the rumbling sound that car tires made on the bridges' wooden deck as they rolled across.

There are noticeable remnants of the old 4th Street Bridge underneath the new 1945 bridge, I've seen them in the water under the east end. Don't know about under Tarpon Dock Bridge.

Got to stop now and get ready for church.

RSF&PTL