I so hope they never remove that broken old bridge. It's become a part of the river ecosystem and is great for iconic pictures of Friant Dam. It just wouldn't be the same without it.

I remember the day it fell but not the date. My Mother had some visitors from Mo. and she decided to take them up to Yosemite and we went through Friant then turned and went over the old bridge to hiway 41 and when we came home that night the bridge had collapsed.

i r

I remember reading in the Fresno Bee that when the bridge was replaced, Fresno County had the funding to remove the debris on "their" side of the river and Madera did not. That is why the pieces are on the Madera side only.

I don't live in Fresno anymore but I do visit a couple of times a year and this past summer me and a good friend of mine actually went up there and I took pictures of it. I never knew what that bridge was (or if I did I didn't remember....we used to go up there all the time when I was a kid in the 60s/70s). I love the things I learn or have forgotten about on here.

btw, if anything messes up the place, it's the graffiti, and even that has an allure of note.

I love the sight of the broken bridges. I hope they leave it there as long as possible. eric in Fresno

The broken bridge was destroyed in the flood of 1951. The ‘new’ bridge was built in 1952, next year will be its 60th anniversary.

Remove the broken bridge? I hope not! I grew up in Friant and that bridge is a landmark. We used to carry our inner tubes up to the bridge and then float down to just below the fish hatchery. The river flowed around the island better then and we were supposed to stay on the Fresno side as the Madera side was too swift. We would stop by Ann’s for a snow cone on the way home. Ann & her husband came out to Friant a few days a week and sold their snow cones out a ‘trailer stand’. They made all their 12 or so flavors, the ice was the texture of soft snow and the cost was ten cents. No other snow cone has ever compared, so I gave up on snow cones years ago.

Opps. It wasn't Skaggs. That was in Kerman. I'll keep looking.

I can't remember exactly where I read about it but if memory serves the old bridge collapsed in a flood or something in the early 1900s. I keep thinking 1918 or something. I found this pic. It was called Skaggs Bridge.