Frank Hardy Made My Photographs Two

For those of you that travel Highway 90 or live in the Milton area are familiar with the bridge across Pond Creek.  Well, I have found some negatives from a wreck that occurred at that bridge back in the 1950’s between a Greyhound Bus and a pick-up truck.  I do not have any details about the wreck, but I just want to show you what the bridge looked like and you will also see the area surrounding the bridge.  Sixty something years ago, this bridge was wooden and there was nothing but dirt and scrub oaks around.  You were still several miles from downtown Milton, which only took up two city blocks before you came to Blackwater River and once you crossed the river, you went back to dirt and scrub oaks … and maybe a few pine trees here and there.  OK, enough talk, here are some photos …

These views you are looking east toward the bridge and Milton.  The first you were maybe 200 feet from the bridge and the second shot you were maybe only 50 feet from the bridge.

All of these photos you have been looking east.  Since this is an MP directing traffic, my guess that the vehicle that ran into the bus might have contained military personnel.  Whiting Field is no where near this bridge, so the MP would have no reason to be in the area unless he was just driving by and wanted to help.  In the middle photo you see where they are connecting the tow truck to bus and if you look real close in the first photo,  you see the tow truck on it’s back two wheels with it’s front wheels completely suspended three or four feet off of the ground.  They must not have had these huge commercial tow trucks that you see towing 18 wheelers down the interstate back in the 1950’s.  Another photo …

This photo is from the middle of the bridge looking west.  You can the wooden timbers that run across the bridge pretty good in the top photo.  I would imagine that an insurance adjuster representing the Greyhound Bus Company hired my father, but I have no way of knowing.  But as I usually say, that is not my purpose here … my sole purpose is just to show things / times as they were.  My thoughts were … can you imagine taking a trip in an un-air conditioned Greyhound Bus across the United States on two-lane county roads with no interstate?  The interstate system was still 7 or 8 years from starting and at least 15 to 18 years from finishing !  I do not think that they started the Interstate until the early sixties and did not completely finish until the mid to late seventies.  Thanks again for looking and I am sure that there are a few of you that remember this old wooden bridge across Pond Creek … let us hear from you … Frank