Memories about growing up in:

About fifty years ago, I would occasionally get the insane idea to ride from North Fresno out to Millerton Lake on my single speed paper route bike, I tried it several times. I never made it up the hill to the dam and usually pooped out after passing the snow cone stand and arriving at the town of Friant. But I always pedaled across the Friant Road Bridge for a better view of the dam. I was always amazed by the broken up sections of the old bridge that they just left there after they put the new one in. It was a very scenic area and those huge bridge sections really messed up the place. Does anyone know the history of the old bridge and if they ever plane to remove it? The first photo shows a section of the broken part in the background and the second one is from google earth slowing all the broken sections. Thanks in advance.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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 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