By Donna Jobe Cronk, a Union County native
ON OUR TREE, DAY 4:
The 1840s Brownsville Covered Bridge spanned the Whitewater River on the west side of Brownsville, Indiana in Union County until the county could no longer justify its expensive upkeep and on a gray March Saturday in 1974, the morning after our 20-0 Union County Patriots were defeated in the Connersville Basketball Sectional, auctioneer Jake Campbell sold the bridge. I was 14, a freshman, and while I didn’t know I’d become a journalist, I went to the auction and took photos. I still have them somewhere. Who would buy our landmark, which was still beautiful and beloved to we who called Brownsville Twp., home, and whose ancestors crossed that bridge on horseback, in buggies, Model Ts and school buses for 130 years? The White River Park of Indianapolis bought it, disassembled and labeled the boards and stored it away. It remained in storage for decades.When a fire destroyed a covered bridge in Columbus, our bridge was purchased to replace it. Up it went! And today, it graces Mill Race Park. Die-hard Brownsvillians who remember every board and cubbyhole in that bridge balk at how it’s not the same, and it is a shortened version. Yet it’s our bridge! It survives and thrives! I remember how the school bus would be playing “Daydream Believer” as we entered the bridge on the way to school, then silence as we passed through it, until Davey Jones resumed, never missing a beat. I had silently sang with him while crossing over into Brownsville and I hadn’t missed a beat either. Then, we immediately stopped to pick up the Pennington and Hoke kids. I rode my pony through that bridge with our dog Penny gingerly crossing over those old boards with us. I played there, as did my brothers and my father and no doubt my grandfather and great-grandparents before him. I surely had family members watch that bridge go up, as our family would later watch it go down.This may be my favorite ornament on our Christmas tree. It’s a small, plain gold-hued ball that was among many like it in my mother’s Christmas things. My beloved brother Tim, who passed away in March, took a black marker and “painted” our bridge on one side. On the other, he carefully wrote, “Brownsville Wagon Bridge – Tim 2000 – Mom’s ornament.”So like my brother. He gave me this treasure 20 years ago. And this is my first Christmas without him. I will miss him every day always.SO, a week ago today my Bloomington friend Cheryl Bennett went to Columbus and happened upon Mill Race Park. JUST the day before I had mentioned MY BRIDGE being there. She took this photo! She said maybe she was meant to take it for me. And here it is for all the others among us who still love our bridge. It’s just that Brownsville isn’t on the other side. But it’s right there all the same, forever in our hearts.
What a beautiful story! I do not have my “own” bridge to claim from my childhood since my family moved hither and yon through my growing up years. But I do remember a covered bridge near Johnstown OH where we lived briefly. It was near enough to our home that we occasionally rode our bikes to explore its appealing beauty. It was there that my mother saw a snake poised to strike in a zigzag stance rather than a coiled one. Thankfully we were able to heed its warning and retreat to safety.