Zelma Clyde Tidwell, Blount County’s Bridge Builder
Nearly every covered bridge Blount County ever built came out of one man’s career. Zelma Clyde Tidwell was born February […]
Bridges & Infrastructure
Covered bridges, fords, roads, and the people who built and crossed them.
History
1869-1934
Smith Ford and the Vaughn Bridge
In 1932, an old man named B.H. Vaughn wrote a letter to the Southern Democrat remembering the hard years after […]
1933
How the Joy Bridge Became the Swann Bridge
Most everyone in Blount County knows Swann Bridge is worth talking about - three hundred and twenty-four feet of Town […]
1967
The Unsolved Burning of the Standridge Bridge
It happened on a Thursday night in November 1967, on a bend in the Locust Fork east of Hayden that […]
1867-1872
Building the L&N Through the Gap
The Civil War largely bypassed this part of Blount County - the closest action was a Union cavalry raid that […]
1880-1915
Reid’s Gap
An L&N Railroad depot that anchored a 2,600-acre orchard operation until the line moved on in 1914-15 - and whose ground resurfaced in 2026.