Southern Truss

"In this tiny shelf of sand just off the shore is part of the story of the north, part of the story of all the beaches I have ever known.  While no writing is done upon it now, the day may come when sandpipers will once more dance before its ebb and flow."
        – Sigurd Olson, from "Wilderness Beach"

An old bridge can be many things – the ones like the great Black River crossing at Lytles Landing, the northernmost tip of Brice Prairie, is made easy to pass.  It is but a network of metal, rusted likely beyond any possible cleansing, raised up for safety against the flow below and sturdy against the wind above.  The bridge itself was constructed in 1927 by the American Bridge Company, one of the most prolific bridge builders of the 20th century, founded in 1900 through the J.P. Morgan-led consolidation of 28 of the largest U.S. based steel fabricators and constructors. The total length of the bridge is 1,212 feet, made of spans, girders, and warren through trusses.

Story, though, includes depth and calls for brief pause. Lytle's was a result of a railroad right of way beginning in the late 1800's.  La Crosse, if anything, is itself a story of transportation, beginning by river and canoe, moving on to the prairie schooner, which graduated to steamboat, and then onto the most prolific connector of the east to west: the railroad.  Just as the breweries provided a firm back-up to the fading of the timber industry, the railroads would serve a similar purpose as steamboats lost their  glory days on the Mississippi.  "At the time the railroad bridge was being built, the workmen stayed in a home close by.

Soon a railroad hotel was built there.  A water tower also constructed near the bridges.  A man named Jim Andrews was the bridge watcher for a number of years.  It was also his duty to see that the water tank was filled.  Water for the tank was pumped by a windmill.  This railroad facility became a favorite spot for fishing, trapping, and hunting waterfowl."

Having stopped on the southern truss to look onto the confluence of the main channel of the Black River and its many other backwater offshoots, it's easy to see this is a thriving natural place.  Fisherman lay down sharp casts over thin rapids below the bridge.  Turtle heads slowly bob upstream above surface seeking shallow footholds of sand.  Hawks cry in the short distance and deeper in the refuge, hundreds of species of early migration birds sing again as if against the lingering late spring thaw.  Behind the truss, just off the point of the landing itself, an old piece of sheet metal, no doubt planted there, bobs up and down with the current to deter any offseason boat landings.

Downriver, it would be the eventual impoundment of the Black River that would, at the request of the Federal Government in the 1930's, allow for the safe expansion of the Mississippi as a navigable nine foot channel.  The fear then was that the Great River would slowly divert and absorb back into the Black if it was not dammed, so a spillway was created and Lake Onalaska has become a hub for recreation, including a bike trail that now offers a gradually approachable story leading back through time when things were certainly different, but not the presence of the river, not the woods, and not the bridge. On the plank of this small southern truss, just above the shore of the river, is part of the story of Blue Collar La Crosse.