⚠️The cache is not at the posted coordinates. However, these are the coordinates for recommended parking.
📣 You are seeking a micro cache that can only be found after completing the Bibb County- This Old House Adventure Lab including its five locations. An Adventure Lab is a special type of geocache that is played on a smartphone. You can download the app for either iOS or Android by looking for Adventure Lab in the app store. Once you have logged onto your geocaching account on this app, click on https://adventurelab.page.link/ZPag *, and use your phone's QR Code reader to navigate to this Adventure Lab. Follow the instructions to answer all 5 questions when you are in the range of each location. YOU WILL RECEIVE THE COORDINATES FOR THIS CACHE FROM A COUPLE OF THE JOURNAL ENTRIES AFTER COMPLETING QUESTIONS OF THE ADVENTURE LAB!
📣 If This Old Bridge could talk you would hear a story that dates back into the time before Alabama statehood. The territory was blessed with plentiful rivers and streams which were good to navigate to other towns and cities that would establish along these waterways. However, there was still the problem of crossing from one side of the river to the other. Many towns including Centreville used fords and toll ferries. A resident by the name of Frank Chotard is the first documented ferry owner crossing the river at this location.
Centreville as early as 1845, however, had a bridge. George Howard built a wooden bridge covered by wooden shingles on the location that was the first of four bridges on this location. It was operated initially as a toll bridge. This bridge would be burned in April of 1865 as part of Wilson’s raid during the Civil War.
After the burning, ferries and fords were used again to cross the Cahaba until 1885. An engineer by the name of Major Mickle, working for the King Bridge Company of Cleveland Ohio, completed the second bridge. It had a central span of 175 feet with an eastern approach of 76 feet and a western approach of 99 feet. This metal and wood construction operated as a toll bridge until 1910.
Expansion of county services such as Bibb County High School which was built to the west of the Cahaba River brought on a demand for better travel between the eastern bank where the City of Centreville was located and the western bank. On September 15, 1910, a replacement third bridge built for $15,000 was completed. This was a two-lane bridge with a metal frame and wood construction.
The fourth bridge, the current Howard Cooper Bridge, replaced this two-lane construction. It was initially a concrete and metal two-lane structure. In 1983, two additional lanes with safety structures were added on the north side of the original.
Source: Ellison, Rhoda Coleman, Bibb County Alabama, The First Hundred Years, 1818-1918, The University of Alabama Press, 1984.
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🥇 *Congratulations to Papa Bear 204 and Mia 87 for First to Find