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Members of a grassroots organization aimed at keeping the historic truss bridge spanning the Duck River in Old Stone Fort State Archeological Park exactly where it is spoke with members of the Manchester Rotary Club during a meeting earlier this month.

Deb Morgan, one of the early members of the group which now numbers 2,600 members, spoke to club members about the efforts being made to save the historic structure from being replaced with a $5 million concrete bridge.

Built in 1906 by the Joliet Bridge and Iron Co., the OSF bridge is reportedly the last of its kind in the state.

“They built four in the state of Tennessee,” Morgan said. “They did not concentrate a lot of the building in Tennessee, they were well known nationwide for some of their artistic tendencies.”

Of the four truss bridges built by the company in Tennessee, it is the only one remaining, she said.

Originally spanning the Elk River on the border between Coffee and Franklin Counties, the bridge found a new home at OSF in 1970 to serve as the main access point to the park’s campground.

“It was a brand new park, they had just built a campground, for some reason they built it across the river, which makes it a little awkward,” Morgan said.

Morgan said the bridge was rehabbed in 2009, and in good condition.

“She has been serving Coffee County for 53 years,” she said. “For 50 of those years she was a vehicular access to the campground and there is a variety of different stories as to what came about with the so-called condemning of this bridge.”

Morgan said the bridge passed its inspection by the Tennessee Department of Transportation in 2018, however a 2020 TDOT survey showed some reported deficiencies in the bridge that concerned the structural integrity of the bridge and it was then closed to vehicular traffic.

“We have never really been able to figure out what the agenda is or what really happened, there are many stories,” Morgan said.

Morgan claimed that a $280,000 campground access road located off Country Club Lane was originally designed to be a permanent addition to the park, despite claims that the new access was only meant to be a temporary solution and would be closed at a later date.

It was then that the OSF Bridge took on a different sort of existence. No longer needed by vehicular traffic, the bridge became a sanctuary of sorts of community members. A place used for fishing, weddings, graduation photos and quiet contemplation.

Morgan said current plans for the bridge are for it to be replaced, but due to the historic nature of the existing bridge, it must be repurposed in some way.

“What they are proposing to do…they said okay we are going to take the truss and we are going to move it across the river and we are going to stick it on a trail called the Garrison Trail that runs alongside Highway 41,” she said. “They are going to put it there as an overlook, as a ruin, that is the way they describe it in their documentation.”

Morgan told members of the Rotary Club members that the 117-year-old bridge deserves to be saved from its proposed future as a “ruin.”

“TDOT says well we are going to take photographs and we are going to document it and we are going to put it in the visitor center,” Morgan said. “That is one-dimensional. Living history is three-dimensional, you can touch it feel it, smell it, engage yourself in it, wrap yourself in it. We have the courthouse and we have the bridge and that is it.”

For more information, visit the Save Our Old Stone Fort Facebook page.

The group’s cause also gained the support of the Coffee County Government with a resolution calling for the preservation of the bridge, passed at the Sept. 12 meeting of the Coffee County Commission.

The resolution calling the bridge historic and significant that needs to be preserved for the public welfare of the county’s citizens passed with a 16-0 vote. Commissioners Laura Nettles and co-sponsor Missy DeFord were absent for the vote.