The Original Hammond Bridge?

If you’re from Kingsport, or ever lived in Kingsport, you remember the original Hammond Bridge, that dreaded narrow, two-lane span that crossed the Holston River just west of Ft. Patrick Henry Dam.

The bridge was so narrow that it became a test of a teenager’s driving skills. Could you negotiate the span in your father’s extra-wide ’59 Chevy with a car approaching from the opposite direction?

That bridge was so dreaded and feared that when Buck Van Huss took the basketball coaching job at D-B in 1968 his wife insisted they live in Colonial Heights so she wouldn’t have to cross the bridge to get back to Hampton, where Buck had previously coached.

The hazardous bridge dilemma was solved when the state added a second span for northbound traffic, turning the old bridge into a one-way highway.

Brenda Eilers found an intriguing photo of the bridge among her parent’s old pictures. “Written on the back was ‘Hammond Bridge.’ Do you suppose it is?? I can't figure out where it was snapped from if so.”

There was no date on the photo.

The bridge is in the distance. In the foreground are what appear to be construction materials: planks, a construction office.

But there are no cars and no people to help identify the time.

And to the right, barely in the frame, is what looks like a tall concrete support.

I originally thought it must have been the construction of Fort Patrick Henry Dam. But the dam wasn’t dedicated until 1953 and Hammond Bridge was built in 1930. The bridge in the picture is definitely not the Hammond Bridge that we know today. It’s a much different construction.

So I dug around...

Beginning in 1923 there was a Boy Scout camp in that area named Camp Hammond. And there was a bridge across the Holston called Camp Hammond Bridge.

In 1933 when Kingsport Stone & Sand opened for business, the newspaper story said it was next to “Hammond Bridge.” So I thought for a time that the construction work in the foreground might be part of the stone and sand company, which would mean the picture is after 1933.

Then I found a story about paving the new Johnson City Highway on the north (Kingsport) side of Hammond Bridge in 1931.

The more I looked at the picture the more I thought that could be the old Camp Hammond Bridge next to what may be construction on a new Hammond Bridge.

I called in my bridge expert, the legendary Bridge Hunter, author of two books about bridges, and Kingsport native, Calvin Sneed.

“Great picture! I believe this to be what the old timers have described to me as the original Pactolus Wooden Bridge, built to cross the river just downstream from where Kendrick Creek empties into the Holston River, South Fork. I believe there was formerly a ferry at that location as well. If you look at the U.S. Geological Survey map the black lines on either side of the river, just below the words ‘Holston Hills’ in the center of the picture. That’s exactly where the bridge in the picture you sent me is. It would have dead-ended at or near present-day Wesley Road, but obviously right at the river bank.

“This picture looks to have been taken from that upper bluff circa 1928 or 1929, near the present-day dam in a very narrow view of the area at where the Hammond Bridge arches are now…. Before the dam was built, all of the area in the bottom of the picture was always under water during a heavy rain, because before the dam, there was no flood control.

“But here’s the question that is stumping me something fierce. Look at that tall concrete structure in the extreme right of the picture…. You would think that it would appear to be one of the piers for the Hammond Bridge. But pictures I have taken show the center piers of the Hammond Bridge finished in 1930 are OPEN, not filled as the picture you sent me, shows.

“I had always heard that the bridge that replaced the Pactolus Wooden Bridge, was a 3-span, steel truss Pratt-style bridge that crossed the river just upriver from Pactolus. The piers for that bridge would have been filled, like the one in the picture you sent. I would think that pier at the extreme right in the picture, would be a pier for that bridge, and the present-day Hammond Bridge and its open-spandrel type piers would have been built later right beside it.

“But that begs the question…. Why would the highway department have left the Pactolus Bridge in place, when they had a newer steel truss bridge just upriver from it? Why wouldn’t they have torn the Pactolus down at that time, just like the steel truss bridge would have been removed, when the Hammond arches were finished?”

After digging a little deeper Calvin came up with another theory.

“I uncovered several writings that reference a steel truss bridge that preceded the Pactolus Ferry Bridge. It's mentioned in T-DOT historian Martha Carver's book on Tennessee bridges. It's for that reason that I now believe that the bridge in the picture you sent me was a service bridge built to transfer equipment and workers building the present-day Hammond Bridge.”

There’s a chapter for Calvin’s next Bridge Hunter book!