To all of those people who have bought into the rumor that Tallahatchie County’s historic Lamb-Fish Bridge is going to be torn down, rest easy.
We have received a number of inquiries about the future of the structure, and local government officials also have fielded more than a few calls.
As we have reported before, it is true that the bridge is being replaced. But it is not being dismantled.
The steel bridge, built in the early 1900s, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. An engineering landmark, it represents the only known example of the vertical-lift span system of bridge design in the state of Mississippi.
The Tallahatchie County Board of Supervisors has no desire to demolish one of the last remaining tangible reminders of the city of Charleston’s heyday, when the Lamb-Fish Lumber Co. operated as the self-proclaimed “largest hardwood lumber mill in the world,” spurring a dramatic growth in local population, industry and retail establishments that was unlike any seen before or since.
Lamb-Fish operated their Charleston mill for a dozen or so years before financial troubles drove the company into receivership. The enormous plant was sold in the early 1920s to Turner-Farber-Love Company of Memphis, which ran the mill another six or so years before closing it for good and shipping its machinery out of state. What still stood of the once booming enterprise was consumed by fire in 1932, but Lamb-Fish Bridge remained.
Originally built for train traffic to ferry cut timber from the Delta back to the mill, Tallahatchie County purchased the bridge for $4,500 in 1938 as plans took shape for a new public road in the area. The bridge later was converted for automobile use and opened to the public as a one-lane bridge in 1952.
In late 1980, the bridge had fallen into such a state of disrepair that the Board of Supervisors did advertise for its demolition, with plans to construct a new crossing. A grassroots effort was organized to save it, leading to its listing on the National Register in 1982.
Despite numerous projects to maintain the 828.8-foot-long bridge, it eventually deteriorated to the point that inspections rated its overall condition poor and its substructure condition serious. As a result, the bridge was closed to vehicular traffic in fall 2018.
In January, Tallahatchie County was awarded $4.4 million to construct a new bridge over the Tallahatchie River just downstream from Lamb-Fish.
The iconic structure will no longer serve its original purpose as a crossing, but it will stand as a bridge to the past for future generations to see and enjoy.
