About a mile downstream from the McTucker Boat Landing, the pillings of the second Tilden Bridge remain--the bridge was moved from here to Ferry Butte in 1926, when the American Falls Reservoir was first filling:
THE MANY MOVES OF THE TILDEN BRIDGE (excerpted from The Shanghi Plain: Bingham County's Early History copyright 2023)
As the twentieth century began, the increasing number of settlers on the west side of the Snake River from Rich (near Ferry Butte) to Aberdeen (not then a town) created a supply of product with little local market, the small towns of Blackfoot and Pocatello, along with American Falls, distant enough to make distribution difficult. Residents clamored for a bridge to be built at Tilden, south of Springfield, on the bottomlands adjoining the Fort Hall Indian Reservation, shortening the trip to Pocatello to just eight or ten miles.1 Citizens petitioned the county commissioners with a list of subscribers who would help defray costs, G.W. Stowell presenting the bridge idea to Pocatello's Commercial Club and getting $6250 in subscriptions in a single day. The money would be paid on demand when the arrangements were made. The bridge would cost $12,500, having three steel spans, each 108' long, with some trestling needed. Settlers and Pocatello businessmen would fence the road from Tilden across the Reservation. Some Blackfooters feared they would lose business, trade being routed to Pocatello.2
The original 1908 bridge placement was "swamped out" for many weeks in the late springs of the following years, suggestions arising for improved roads from both Pocatello and Blackfoot. Officials rejected a proposal that the mail for the American Falls Canal project be re-routed through Pocatello instead of Blackfoot, citing that persistent flooding problem.3 The bridge washed out just a couple years after its construction and sat high and dry, the channel having moved two hundred yards. In the spring of 1913, the newspaper referred to the bridge as a "white elephant", with Pocatello, Blackfoot, and Tilden wrestling with pros and cons: Pocatello wanted the bridge to get Tilden business, Tilden wanted the bridge rebuilt to lure Indian business to their area, Blackfooters were indifferent, considering both negative and positive consequences. Additionally, some wanted the bridge moved near where it presently was, some wanted it moved upstream a goodly amount.4 Aberdeen threw its two cents in, too, suggesting the bridge move to the river miles downstream, closer to their town.5 Two years later, the tussle was resolved. Consequently, after much discussion, Bingham and Bannock County agreed to move it a half mile upriver at an estimated cost of $7250. Midland Bridge of Kansas City signed a contract to move it, with each county paying half of the cost as well as sharing equally in maintenance.6
Pete Jensen was engineer in charge of rebuilding the bridge in January of 1916,7 one Colorado man drowning during construction when scaffolding broke, his four companions managing to survive.8 In February, a road heading northeasterly from the bridge on the flats toward Thomas was okayed.9 Shortly after, the false bridge work gave way (for the second time).10
The bridge was finished in early May, during high water in which boaters capsized nearby, one man drowning while trying to rescue a woman who had been holding to the false scaffolding for four and a half hours in icy water.11 Another man, Jeremiah Sivels, fell off the bridge in September. His body was found eighteen miles downstream several days later.12 In June of the following year, the bridge had washed out again, Zed Satterfield unable to cross the bridge with a load of hogs.13 The county repeatedly added riprap each year, the river uncooperative at the new site.
When the decision to create a dam at American Falls finalized in 1920, the Tilden Bridge location became unfeasible--it would be inundated by the reservoir along with all surrounding farms and roads. Pingree, Springfield, Sterling and Rich farmers, accustomed to quicker access to Pocatello than a trip through either American Falls or Blackfoot to cross the Snake, wanted the bridge moved, opting for a site just west of Ferry Butte--not far from where Meek's Ferry once operated.
The Bingham County road department logs and transit books reveal specific expenses about that move in 1926, among them: 4-23-26—$4.75 for a dinner for six men and $1.35 for supper for three; 8-3-26--$0.50 telephone call from Springfield; and the big one, on December 10, the sum total of costs from August of 1926 to May of 1927--$19,860.29 to move the bridge:$9,073.95 to make the north and west roads that that reach the bridge; and $2,922.88 to finish the east. The federal government paid $30,470 of that total and the County divvied up the remaining $1387.12. It appears George Davis may have been instrumental in the move, as he received the largest check—about a third of the entire sum. Davis may have resided on a ranch just a mile downstream from the new site, making his trip to work a short one for the duration of the move, but how he dismantled and transported a four hundred foot bridge remains a mystery. An earlier move in 1916 suggested the bridge be taken apart into its one hundred foot sections (three from the old plus a new one to add to it in the new location), but did the greater distance required in the last move prohibit that method?
The State of Idaho and Bingham County paid for a new concrete bridge just upstream from the old steel Tilden Bridge in 1964. The old bridge was auctioned off at the courthouse steps in January of 1965.14 There were no bidders, however, just thirty lookers, so a new auction took place the next month, with John Wade purchasing the four hundred foot structure for $300.15 The pilings from the replaced structure remain in the river--as do the pilings of the original Tilden Bridge on the flats.
Ralph Thurston is the author of The Shanghi Plain: Bingham County's Early History, available at Kesler's Market in Blackfoot and online at https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CCCS7XLR?ref_=pe_3052080_397514860
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