The Old Town Toll Bridge

The Toll Bridge

There’s just something about the 75-year-old Oldtown Toll Bridge in Green Spring, WV, which connects Green Spring, WV to Oldtown, MD.  Let me see if I can describe it in such a way that you can understand its character.

At age 42, my earliest memories of the toll bridge are that it is a HOT topic of discussion.  Yet, every year comes and goes, and that toll bridge remains, clearly aging right along with me!  I find it amusing to hear local people talk about it year in and year out...same subjects:  dangerous; expensive toll; drama with the new owner; drama with the state; flooded; laden with debris; and so forth.  It’s the same stories, year after year!  As a hometown girl who only comes home every so often, I have the privilege of seeing and feeling the romanticism in the whole thing.  For you see, this bridge represents more to me than just a way to get across the northern branch of the Potomac River.  It represents hours of stories; it represents laughing, sometimes crying; it represents being a daredevil; it represents solidarity in the community; it represents permanence; it represents comedy; it represents politics; well...it represents pretty much EVERYTHING!

So, as always, on this visit, I drag my family down for my ritual “toll bridge visit”.  

The drive there is exciting in and of itself.  I pass Grace’s Country store on the sharp curve in Springfield.  That store alone can be a heartfelt blog.  I pass Grandma and Grandpap’s old house, Uncle Jimmy’s, Great-Grandma and Great-Grandpap’s old driveway, Aunt Pearl’s, the house my family and I used to live in, my old totally charming Forest Glen United Methodist Church, a bevy of aunts’, uncles’ and cousins’ homes.  My heart warms with all of the memories---on this little country road that Mom and Dad drove me home on 42 years ago.  <sigh>.  We enter the town Green Spring, population 218 (give or take).  

We cross the railroad tracks and my heart skips a beat as we rumble across that old track.  The Toll Bridge is close now!  The country road narrows and meanders through old farm land with pastures of freshly mowed hay and tall bright green corn stalks with some blonde silk glistening in the sun.  Not there yet!  We have to go under the old one-lane tunnel built under the train tracks!  As we drive under it, the sounds are briefly muffled as I hold my breath hoping it doesn’t collapse.  That tunnel is OLD!  About a half-second later, we emerge on the other side safely, and now I know the toll bridge is real close!  We drive under a canopy of brilliant green trees and round the elbow curve to the right, and there it is, in all its glory: the TOLL BRIDGE!

We park and I hold back tears as I see it.  Sounds silly, but if you haven’t figured it out, I am pretty sentimental.  And when it comes to my home state and our landmarks, even more so.  

My camera is poised.  Do I do it?  Do I step onto the old boards?  Or will the toll booth attendant run out to me from the Maryland side and demand the $1.50 toll?  Heehee...I risk it.  I step onto the old boards.  It is like I am transported through time.  I start breathing frantically until I embrace the time travel.  I’m in the old Gran Torino blue wagon.  Dad’s driving, and the front tires roll over the old boards.  Clankety, clankety, bumpety, bumpety, clang, clangety, clump, clump, creeeeaaakkkk.  We keep moving forward.  Sounds like the boards are buckling and sagging down to the muddy Potomac waters.  Yet we keep going.  Ah--it is so musical!  Don’t dare turn the wheel!  Keep it straight lest you roll off the side!  I am hypnotized by the rhythmic sounds.  Please let the bridge hold together!  Please don’t let us fall into the raging Potomac!  (Heehee--for the most part, the Potomac isn’t raging---only during/after heavy rainstorms.)

And then the end of the bridge approaches, going over the gravelly shore.  We MADE it.  We are safe now!  As the tires roll onto solid pavement, my hearing muffles as the clangety clang clang echoes in my ears.  We drive up to the toll booth, and the hammered old tin cup comes out tied to a stick and Dad drops in 25 cents.  CLANK!  Dad grumbles under his breath about the cost.  We drive away as I stare longingly out the back of the station wagon at the beautiful toll bridge, and I cross my fingers that we’ll come home this way.

The plop of the water made by a fish brings me back to present day.  I step further out onto the old boards.  I hear the birds, I hear the river, I hear frogs, I hear more water plops as fish come to the surface.  I am so giddy to be walking on the old bridge.  The lady in the toll booth is not coming out, so I decide to walk all the way to the middle.  I figure I can outrun her back to West Virginia if needed.  I snap some photos and breathe in my West Virginia air.  I hear a car coming, and race back to the road.  My flip-flop gets caught between the boards, but I keep my balance.  I am beaming with a smile from ear to ear as my adrenaline rushes to my head--a result of this risky bridge walk!  I glance at the driver who has the privilege of driving across the gorgeous structure, and I am jealous.  They don’t look amused, but actually look quite fearful.  I wave and smile...they must think I’m nuts.  And then I hear it:  “Clankety, clankety, bumpety, bumpety, clang, clangety, clump, clump, creeeeaaakkkk.”  Music to my ears.

The Old Town Toll Bridge.  It’ll take you back in time.

For more info on the toll bridge, here is an article I found from last year:  

http://wvuncovered.wvu.edu/stories/fall_2011/the-link-between-two-towns

And these are the photos I risked my life to get: