City, private effort creates new, improved Salt Creek pedestrian bridge
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City workers, city councilmen, Keep Graham Beautiful members, Bertha Foundation members and first responders line the new bridge over Salt Creek at Fireman’s Park. The bridge was completed over the span of a few months and was closed in April due to safety concerns. (Leader photo by Thomas Wallner) -
The Salt Creek bridge as it appeared during its completion in the July 1, 1969 midweek edition of The Graham Leader, which was then called the The Graham Reporter. The bridge, which was 136 feet long and 4 feet wide, connected Salt Creek park with the new Harbison Park which was to be developed on the West side of the stream. (Graham Reporter photo/ courtesy Dorman Holub)
Thomas Wallner
newsdesk@grahamleader.com
After being closed in April due to safety issues, the bridge over Fireman’s Park is open again thanks to the combined efforts of the City of Graham, Keep Graham Beautiful and the Bertha Foundation.
The total cost of the project was $17,000 and the construction of the bridge was done at the city warehouse by city workers over a couple of months as time allowed and took two weeks to position across Salt Creek according to Graham City Manager Brandon Anderson. He said the project restoration was all the idea of Public Works Administrator Jason Cottongame.
“Jason (Cottongame), this was his idea. It was out of his head and onto paper and then he called the engineer and said ‘hey will you sign off on this,’” Anderson said. “The engineer made a few tweaks and changes, but Keep Graham Beautiful and the Bertha Foundation have been great to work with and their support of this both physically coming out and thanking guys which I can’t tell you how much that does for our group, but also financially with the Bertha Foundation that helped fund this as well.”
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