Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, April 10, 1990 TAG: 9004100266
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B1 EDITION: STATE
SOURCE: MONICA DAVEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: HUDDLESTON LENGTH: Medium
On one side was the elementary school, the post office and a straight-through route to Bedford. On the other, the Ruritan community center, Blankenship's Grocery and an easy road to Smith Mountain Lake.
Huddleston was divided down the middle on Labor Day 1987, when flood waters in Goose Creek rose up and wiped out the 50-year-old bridge that connected one side of Virginia 626 to the other.
"We could hear it coming," recalled Dorothy Blankenship, whose house sits next to the old bridge. "Trees were hitting the bottom of the bridge, and my husband said, `It's going out this time.' "
When the Blankenships woke up the next morning, the bridge was gone, some of its parts left crushed in the creek.
Three years later, Huddleston has a brand new $1.4 million bridge that rises 55 feet above the creek - and above a set of railroad tracks the old bridge had crossed. The bridge was open for traffic this week as workers put finishing touches on its surface and removed a temporary bridge that had reunited north and south Huddleston since late October 1987.
For people like Margaret Mack, the Labor Day flood could not have been worse. Mack's house, on the north side of the crumpled bridge, was just nine miles from her new flower shop. But Smith Mountain Flowers was south of the bridge.
Instead of a straight shot down Virginia 626, Mack had to take a weaving one-hour drive from her house to the flower store. And another hour back at night.
She recalled some people - who owned houses on one side and whose families owned houses right across the water - trying to walk across with careful steps on beams of the broken bridge left stuck on the creek's bed.
It didn't do wonders for her new business, since customers had no easy way to get there either. "Then you'd finally get here, and nobody came," Mack said.
Huddleston's postal carriers had equally ridiculous commutes. Postmaster Mary Howell recalled this week that during those two months in 1987, her two carriers logged more than 500 extra miles a week because of the missing bridge. The pair ended up with three days' compensation for the longer hours it took them to deliver Huddleston's mail, she said.
"It was really a hardship," she said.
Huddleston Elementary School pupils who lived on the south side of the bridge had equally treacherous trips to get to and from school on the north side of the bridge every day.
Buses left earlier in the morning to carry the students past Moneta Elementary and Body Camp Elementary before they reached their own school.
Surprisingly enough, no one really complained much, Huddleston Principal Aaron Dixon remembered. "People seemed to realize that this was the only way."
On a list of objectives Dixon wrote to the school superintendent that year - his first year at Huddleston - was "to secure a bridge." He drew a smiley face next to that entry. But by the time Superintendent John Kent went over the list around Christmas, that objective had been met. At least temporarily.
State Department of Transportation workers installed a temporary bridge at Goose Creek Oct. 29.
The permanent bridge has brought Huddleston an added perk: no more waiting for trains.
The new bridge passes over the train tracks, which sit in the creek's gully. The old, broken bridge never did that. "Maybe it was a blessing in disguise," said Mack, who said she has watched the bridge's new beams and parts be trucked past her shop.
"We got a nice new bridge and we're glad it's over with."
Huddleston residents have a celebration planned to officially open and dedicate the bridge in a ceremony at 11 a.m. April 28. Wyoming state Sen. Henry Huttleston Rogers Coe, great-grandson of Henry Huttleston Rogers - the millionaire who financed the building of the Virginian Railway and for whom the community was named - will be a special guest at the ceremony.
A special cancellation will appear on all mail sent from Huddleston that day too, Powell said. A sketch of the new bridge and the words "Bridge Dedication" will be printed next to the regular cancellation.
by CNB