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Key Facts |
Bridge Name |
Type | Road | Location | City | Crossing |
| Old Lakeshore Bridge | Truss | Old Lakeshore Road | Lambton County, Ontario | Sarnia | Cull Drain (Perch Creek) |
A long time ago, this was the main lakeshore shore highway that went north from Sarnia, Ontario. The current alignment for the lake shore road is now further from the lake, and is known as "New Lakeshore Road" As you might guess the now-fragmented road that this bridge was once a part of is called "Old Lakeshore Road" Most of Old Lakeshore is gone now, as newer residential sub-divisions have been built, that tore out Old Lakeshore and placed their roads elsewhere. A flood also took out parts of it in 1973. A tiny stretch of it remains in one area, in the form of a dead end road. When you turn onto this dirt road, it is like being in a different era. The road is very close to Lake Huron and yet has no guardrails! The road is narrow, and it dead ends at the historic truss bridge.
The Old Lakeshore Bridge is a 100 foot subdivided warren pony truss in a camelback shape. Abutments are made of concrete. The bridge was built in 1910. Steel on the bridge was made by Carnegie Steel. The bridge has been closed to cars for apparently several decades. Local residents appear to use the bridge as part of a trail for jogging. The bridge is in an unmodified, yet deteriorating condition. No single part of the bridge appears to be deteriorated beyond the point of restoration, however. The paint on the bridge is mostly gone, however, and if paint is not applied to the bridge, it will surely begin to show much heavier rusting soon, which would make it harder to restore. The abutments appear to be cracking, and it would be a shame if failing abutments caused the whole bridge to fall and be destroyed. Hopefully, enough Sarnia residents will see both the value of having a place to jog and also a historical landmark in their neighborhood and will be able to get the bridge and its abutments restored.
Maxine McBryan from Forest, Ontario emailed me and mentioned that although the water this bridge is crossing is sometimes called Perch Creek, this is in fact incorrect. Apparently, somewhere along the line somebody got confused, and the incorrect label has stuck around. An except from the email is below, which also discusses some history of the bridge.
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Comments about the bridge and the waterway from Maxine McBryan: My great great grandfather, James Yeates, his son,
and my grandfather, also James William Yeates had the property that abut
the Cull Drain. I see you have Cull Drain (Perch Creek) listed as the
location. I know they are calling it Perch Creek now, which is a big,
big mistake. You see Perch Creek never drained anywhere near where the
Cull Drain was originally dug. It flowed out the south end of Lake
Wawanosh which was the lake they were draining way back in 1860. The
Perch Creek flowed east to where it drain into Lake Huron at Bright's
Grove. The 911 people are calling the original Perch Creek, Cow Creek.
Cow Creek was actually a tributary which joined Perch Creek about a mile
or half a mile before they reached Lake Huron. I don't know who is
responsible for making these mistakes when they put the 911 addresses
out, but they sure didn't know their geography or history. Another story
I remember my grandfather telling us was when the bridge was out after
the storm of Nov. 1913. I'm not sure if he meant it was washed out
(which wouldn't surprise me) or if he meant it `was so badly damaged
they couldn't use it. But he said it was a problem because there was no
way to get across the drain at that point. I think there was another
private bridge on their property, though, north of where the railroad
bridge is now. |
