Bridges to nowhere, or somewhere

There's a part of me that's kind of a bridge nut. I don't like the newer breed (read: "newer" = "last 25-30 years") of bridges that exist solely to carry cars across water, with no soul and no charm and no character. Give me an old, possibly "haunted" bridge any day of the week.

Until the last year, there was a bridge on US 231 between Loogootee and Jasper, just north of Haysville, that took people across the East Fork of the White River. We had one just like it in our town (before that one was replaced when I was a teenager), yet the one on 231 seemed a little more narrow and scary. I'm sure there was a lot of folklore surrounding that bridge, and I don't recall exactly what any of it was, but I do remember driving across it at night with my lights off when I was a teen. I don't remember if that meant I was going to get laid or fired from my job at Dairy Queen; the folklore wasn't clear on this point.

Of course, with the collapse of the I-35W bridge in Minneapolis just over a year ago, there's been a lot of reassessment of the state of our bridges. And a lot of these charming old bridges are probably going to be going away soon. Including that old four-spanner on 231; it's already met its maker and has been replaced by a lifeless bridge that looks a lot like this. (Which, incidentally, just opened this week, replacing a gorgeous - if frightening - Old Portersville Bridge.)

You'll note that photos of the new Haysville bridge isn't available anywhere on the internets. I wonder why. It doesn't have anything to do with it being strictly utilitarian, does it?

That's why, before it's too late, I'd love to go about an hour south/southwest of here and cross this bridge. Imagine - a rickety old wooden one-lane bridge that's about 100 years old, crossing the Wabash, which is a little bigger than your standard ditch - where if you look down at the floor, you can see the river below in spots. How breathtaking and awesome and terrifying. And what a cool name: the Wabash Cannonball Bridge.

I also would have loved to have seen this bridge, about an hour west/northwest, but it's been gone about 20 years.

Two other local bridges of interest that I hope my son is able to appreciate when he's older are Brooks Bridge and the covered bridge over the East Fork White River at Williams. People go apeshit over their covered bridges, so I'm sure that the latter will be around forever in one form or another, but I worry about the future of the former. Now that is a spooky bridge. I have always been certain of pending death when I cross it.