1898 Laurel Street Bridge Railings

1898 Laurel Street Bridge Railings. . , This "fence section" you see before you is actually a bridge railing from the Laurel Street Bridge that sat at that Mississippi River location from 1898 to 1978. All the railings were salvaged before the old bridge was demolished. How they got HERE is a bit of an interesting story., Apparentley [sic], six sections were saved by the City of Brainerd, and much later used on the end of a cul-de-sac on Hawkins Drive, these six are now gone. Some 60 sections of railings were sold to a farmer SE of town. There they laid unused until Mike McMillion found them advertised on Craigslist and bought them for use as livestock fencing. In August of 2016 he was browsing Andy Walsh's "Share History and Stories about Brainerd Lakes Area" group page on Facebook and noticed a photo of the old bridge coming down and said, "Hey, those look like my hog panels!", The rest really IS history. A few years prior to all this, 4 of the original 1898 plaques were found in the basement of City Hall. In 2017 the City exchanged one of them with Mike for four of these railings that he had not yet installed. 120 years later, in 2018, four have not "come back home" in two locations; the original bridge location, and at the Crow Wing County Historical Society's museum, also on Laurel St. Many thanks to all involved in this challenging group effort: The City of Brainerd, Crow Wing County, Brian's Welding, Gull Lake Sandblasting and Powdercoating, Sue Knudsen, LaVonne Danzl, and of course the railings donor Mike McMillion.