“Troubled bridge over beautiful waters”

Posted: 01 Aug 2010 02:48 AM PDT

Posted By Les Green, East End Report

Posted 8 hours ago

Away back when Crescent Lake was just a slough or a swamp or a hay meadow or whatever, one Billy Smith bought land on the island and needed better access to it. So, right about where the Hudson Bay Store was on 17th or 18th Street S.W., he built The Mud Bridge. Its very construction seemed to have given it its name. It lasted till 1914 when it was blown up, but if you look hard, you might still see where it was.

Town Planning

It was in 1898 that the little town of Portage la Prairie decided to build a real bridge, this time at the foot of Campbell Street, now our Royal Road. By this time, a way had been discovered for getting more water into the old river bed, which indeed it once was – but that is a story for another day. The foundations of the new structure did not go down very deeply, and it was prone to heave and settle.

A new/old story

Though few can remember it, the Fair Board used to have a most picturesque exhibition building back in the early 1900s, called "The Crystal Palace" due to its many windows. When the First World War erupted, a battalion of the Manitoba Mounted Rifles encamped on the island, getting permission to use the building for its headquarters. As the story goes, one spring the bridge got washed out and the soldiers had to find ways of getting into town by any means possible, even in old wash tubs. Some say the Palace was also a casualty of the war.

I was there

Yes, when I was about three in 1929, it was felt the bridge had finally outlived its usefulness, and a new one, this time with wooden piles going down to bedrock, was built. Even so, it tended to rise and fall on occasion.

Was it one winter in the 1970s that a major overhaul was made, with the forty-or-so-year-old span being dismantled and rebuilt? A temporary ice crossing came into use, but there was much consternation when we had an early spring that year. But the renovations got completed just in time.

Unforgettable stories

One hears so many remembrances of The Bridge — of all the girls who got their engagement rings there after a walk in The Park — of bets being laid where the next hump would be — of a snowmobiler getting a noggin-knock down below — and a speed-boater ending his nautical career when he met one of the posts.

My bridge!

Let me tell you how many times I have walked over it, driven my cars over it, rode my old C.C.M. bike and now my electric moped over it. I've climbed under it in the summer and skated under it in the winter. I've walked on the handrail (well, it was really the rail between the walkway and the traffic way) but I did it. And I saw them building it from my stoller. So don't you lay a hand on it, you hear, for it's mine!

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Engagement Rings

Sunday, August 1, 2010