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You are here: home   Issues   Peace on the Klamath   Dewey Bridge: In memoriam

 

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Dewey Bridge: In memoriam

Westwatch - From the June 23, 2008 issue of High Country News by Jim Stiles
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When old Dewey Bridge was burned to death in April by a 7-year-old playing with matches, it was almost more bad news than I could bear to hear. One relic after another of the rural West's past has vanished, but this was one I thought would survive. The bridge was originally brought in pieces from Chicago in 1916, and assembled across the Colorado River, 30 miles upstream from Moab, Utah; for a while, it was one of the longest suspension bridges west of the Mississippi. A few years ago, Jennifer Speers, the millionaire with a soul, bought up the adjacent Dewey Bridge subdivision from a developer. She plowed under the roads, dismantled the infrastructure and tore down a $600,000 home in order to restore the area to the way it had been. It was a rare place of Hope. Now this. The fire triggered memories of my first visit

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