A Public Servant Traditional Cache
Vertighost: Cache owner (CO) has not responded and, as there's been no cache to find for an extended period of time, I'm archiving it to keep it from continually showing up in search lists and to prevent it from blocking other cache placements. Please note that caches that have been archived due to maintenance issues or cache owner-responsiveness are not eligible to be unarchived.
Vertighost
Geocaching HQ Volunteer Reviewer
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A microcache, located on a safe, well lighted, pedestrian bridge.
I have been a public servant for some seventy years. I have been helping people cross the San Jacinto River all these years. I am a highway bridge. I’m not at all certain of my history – any corrections or amplifications would be appreciated.
I’m not sure when I was built. Longtime Kingwood residents can remember a marker on my foundations showing the flood stage of 1935, so I know that I date at least that far back. (This marker and other similar ones have since been removed – probably by land developers not anxious to reveal the power of the San Jacinto.) There is a legend of an earlier bridge that was located on the east side of the railroad bridge some quarter of mile downstream. It may have been, however, that this was the location of Pleasant Humble’s ferry.
Until the mid-1960s, I carried all of the US 59 traffic across the river – there was only one span and, narrow as I am, I carried both north- and southbound traffic. By 1970 a new span had been completed to carry southbound traffic (this 1970 span today makes up half of the current southbound lane), but I served as the only northbound lane for Highway 59 until the late 1970s. Subsequently, additional spans were completed serving crossings in both directions. Over the years these spans have frequently been widened and improved.
In 1994, while I was serving as the Eastex Freeway service road, the flooded San Jacinto washed out my approach on the south end. The traffic load on the then two-lane northbound freeway span forced the emergency conversion of the shoulder on the northbound span into a traffic lane.
In 1996 I was listed as a National Historic Site.
In 2011 I was dedicated to the memory of Bevil Jarrell, a life-long resident of Humble and a highly respected teacher, coach, and mentor.
Today, seven US 59 bridges span the San Jacinto. Six of these service the vehicular traffic needs. But I have been converted into a pedestrian bridge. Light standards have even been installed down the middle of my deck to make a nighttime walk possible.
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The cache is a magnetic tube. Bring you own pencil. Trade goods are not necessary.
Park under the bridge on either side of the river. Take care not the get on the wrong span: the correct one is obviously the oldest one. It is the second of seven counting east to west.
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Note 11/8/07: Terrain rating changed to "1". New work on the bridge has made it wheelchair accessible. New and improved parking under the bridge is also available.
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Note 12/9/09: In the five years since this cache was originally placed, access to the pedestrian bridge has been greatly improved. Handrails and protective barriers have been erected on both sides of the bridge and on both approaches. Paved parking in now available on both sides of the river. The heavy chain, originally used to support a road sign and subsequently used to suspend the cache, has been removed during the general improvements. The cache has thus been relocated in a new package a few feet from its original location.
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Na vapu nobir gur oevqtr qrpx yriry.