The stone foot bridge

I went hiking at the park today without my iPhone earbuds. I wanted to think about words to go with a picture I had taken earlier. It was a glorious morning. I was deep in thought and missed a fork in the path.

Instead of climbing up to the top of the hill and looking down, I stayed down and ended up going over this stone foot bridge, WPA vintage.

Works Progress Administration (later Works Projects Administration) was part of the New Deal response to the Great Depression unemployment. It created 8 million jobs between 1935 and 1943. Almost every community in the U.S. had a new park, bridge or school. (Thanks Wikipedia!)

It has become almost a scavenger hunt for me to find WPA projects in towns we've been through. You can spot them because they often use local rocks and cement for materials.

As I looked back on this bridge, I wonder about the creative process. Whose idea was it? How did they know it would stand? Who dug and sorted the rocks? Who was the first to walk over it?

How many family members relied on the wages of those working on this bridge?

Did they have any idea that it would be crossed by me 80 years later?