“Kalamazoo Street Bridge Swept Away and Is Lodged Against the Michigan Avenue Structure. This has been a day to be marked in local history as one of disaster. To use the words of a small boy, who was more impressed with the free excitement furnished than the seriousness of the damage inflicted, there had been a whole ‘mess of doings.’ ” The State Republican, Lansing, Michigan, March 25th, 1904
Behind an old faded photograph I purchased at an antique store was written in pencil: “Kalamazoo St. Bridge Lansing after it floated down river, Clarence.” I’m not sure if Clarence took the photograph or one of the three men on the bridge is Clarence. An ice filled, swollen river swept away a wrought iron bridge and the local newspaper reported the disaster, quoting a small boy’s description of the scene as a “mess of doings.”
A mess of doings aptly describes what happened on December 28th, 2008, as the Shiawassee River in Chesaning, Michigan, swollen and ice jammed, demolished a rare historic wrought iron bridge. Its swift current piled ice and debris against the length of the bridge; the relentless currents of the swollen Shiawassee River weakened the resistance of the anchor bolts that held the bridge in place and ripped them from the abutments. Drifting atop the swift river, one of the heavy wrought iron inclined end posts caught and wedged against trees along the bank, and the bridge slowly rolled on its side. This mess of doings began when the Parshallburg Bridge, built by the Wrought Iron Bridge Co. of Canton, Ohio, in 1889 was moved to Chesaning, Michigan, in 1999. Placed on abutments below the elevation of the 100-year-flood line, the restored bridge was almost swept away in February 2001 due to harsh weather conditions. Then, on December 28th, 2008, the ice packed relentless current of the Shiawassee River destroyed the historic Parshallburg Bridge. Observation from a local whose grandfather fished from the bridge at its original location: “the river knew the bridge didn’t belong here.”
