You really can’t see the bridge entrance now, unless you look closely. As you pass by Zaxby’s on Hwy 165 North going towards Bastrop, look to the left and you will catch a glimpse of it. Someone last week called me and asked me what I knew about it. To be quite honest, I had never been asked, and never really researched it! Here is what I found in state newspapers.
The earliest reference to the bridge in state papers was a Monroe society column in the Shreveport Times, July 18, 1900:
Three buss loads of young people had a delightful moonlight picnic at Phillips’ bridge on Bayou DeSaird last night.*
*Spelling as written.
It seems the bridge was a great moonlight picnic spot for the young set!
I have seen it said that the bridge was built back in 1897. This makes sense, because I found a 1918 article stating it was 22 years old. Unfortunately, the Police Jury Minute books our Special Collections department houses, is missing 1894 – 1902. I can’t really pin down the exact date with the materials I have at hand. I did, however, find a Farmerville Gazette article from June 16, 1897 stating it cost $2,500 to build.
The story goes that the bridge was named after Charles W. Phillips, who was the President of the Police Jury at the time it was built. The Phillips family owned a large plantation in the area which probably helped too!
By 1916, the iron bridge was rusting and the flooring was dangerous to drive on. One article said it was, “…even near the point of falling down.” The police jury decided to use a $200,000 bond issue to erect a new reinforced concrete bridge to replace it. The cost was estimated to be around $14,000. On the front page of the News Star on August 14, 1918 was the following announcement:
“Having been fully completed by the J.H. Scruggs Construction Company, the new reinforced concrete bridge over Bayou DeSiard at Phillips crossing, near Monroe, formally was accepted by the Police Jury at that body’s meeting today. The new bridge was characterized as a “fine piece of work.” Parish Engineer Boyd already had approved the completed structure.
So this is the bridge most everyone knows. It withstood going underwater during the 1927 flood, the area becoming a part of the city limits of Monroe, threats to close it starting in the 1960’s, and the widening of Hwy. 165. In the late 1990’s, the bridge was closed for safety reasons and it was estimated it would cost around $2 Million to replace it. Now the old bridge has been left to time and rot.
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