By Danny Crownover
Back in 1947, shortly after James E. Folsom took over as governor of Alabama, he made a tour of the state. He went with director Ward McFarland of the state highway department and the highway committee of the legislature to get firsthand information about the needs of highway and bridge construction in various counties.
When they came here, they were met by Gadsden’s Lt. Gov. James C. Inzer, speaker William Beck of the House of Representatives and Etowah County representatives James Allen, E.L. Roberts and Edward B. Miller, Gadsden’s mayor J.H. Meighan and associate commissioners Morris Ford and Robert McElroy and other interested parties.
Mayor Meighan, who acted as spokesman for the city officials, made the first official plea for a new bridge across the Coosa River, declaring that Gadsden offered one of the best examples of what improved trafficways can do toward building a community.
In launching the campaign for a new bridge, something that had been talked about for several years, the mayor said that 20 years ago the only crossing on the river was on the L. & N. Railroad bridge.
At that time there were a few small stores on the east side and a comparatively small number of homes. The population of East Gadsden was estimated at around 300.
In 1927, he said, the state built the Broad Street (Memorial) bridge at a cost of $393,640.30. Two years later the Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company located its dixie plant in East Gadsden and that section started building.
Business houses, a bank, a branch post office, schools, churches, small manufacturing plants, the Alabama School Of Trades, Starnes Park and Campbell Court with 250 dwelling units, the Gadsden Ordnance Shell Plant, Burns Park with 320 dwelling units, the Army Air Forces Depot, hundreds of new homes and 110 dwelling in Brookwood Addition soon followed.
The Alabama Power Company also announced the building of a $14,000,000 steam power plant in East Gadsden. Goodyear started out with 750 employes and in 1947 it had 3,500.
The mayor also stated that he and his associates had reason to believe that a large industry would take over the shell plant and would provide an additional payroll of five million dollars a year… within three or four years. He was speaking of the Allis-Chalmers plant which was in operation.
He said that Gadsden had experienced a phenomenal growth, and that the greatest part of it was on the east side, all of it largely the result of building the river bridge in 1927.
The state’s investment of $399,640.30 had been returned to the state treasury many times through the location of the Goodyear plant alone. The expansion had reached the point, he said, where the one bridge across the Coosa River was not adequate to take care of the traffic.
In March, 1946, state engineers made a traffic survey in Gadsden. It showed that in a 24-hour period, 14,884 vehicles crossed the river bridge, including 374 regularly scheduled buses, road buses on state highways.
(In August of 1968, Meighan Bridge had a traffic count of 27,000 vehicles per day while Memorial Bridge had 21,000. )
The mayor said that a year after that survey was made the traffic was much heavier and that there were times when traffic jams were of a serious nature. He pointed out, too, that in 1930 Gadsden’s population was 24,042 and in 1940 it was 36,975. In 1946 a special census showed a population of 51,340 with 11,107 of that number residing in East Gadsden.
The mayor concluded with this statement: “I hope that the state will see fit to invest in another bridge in Gadsden, which will not only take care of our present traffic needs but will also make possible further returns to our state treasury through revenues and additional employment to our people.”
Since that meeting the city commission was able to furnish even more startling figures about the growth of the city and its need for a new bridge.
The bridge was finally built. On December 18, 1954, the bridge officially was dedicated, with Mary Spence Meighan and Lynn C. Meighan, granddaughters of the late mayor, cutting the ribbon to open the bridge to traffic. A short ceremony took place in a brisk, cold wind, with Congressman Albert Rains delivering the dedicatory address.
Following the speech by Rains, James E. “Big Jim” Folsom, governor-elect, was introduced and spoke briefly on his association with Meighan. The wife of the late mayor, with son J. Herbert Meighan Jr., had the seats of honor on the speakers’ platform.
Since Meighan Bridge opened, it has now become a traffic bottleneck. With six lanes approaching either sides of the 4-lane bridge, public officials are now planning a whole new bridge over the Coosa River with more lanes.
