Unless you live in the Logan area, you might not ever know it, but a relic of Cullman County’s mid-20th-Century rural growth has quietly succumbed to the implacable laws of time (and physics).

Sometime recently — it’s tough to pinpoint exactly when — the old wood-and-steel bridge that traversed Crooked Creek along a forsaken portion of County Road 818 collapsed, its single-lane span crashing into the water from their perch atop the high stone pillars that formerly held the aging structure aloft. Area resident Brett Harbison recently found the bridge in its current state on a recent visit to the site, sharing photos he took of the collapsed structure with The Times.

Once connecting residents in the Logan community on either side of the winding creek, the bridge had been serving as rustic scenery rather than as functional infrastructure for years: The Cullman County Road Department had decommissioned the bridge long ago after building a newer span, still in use use today, a short distance away.

Located within the rugged, isolated hills that descend toward the creekbed as it cuts a snaking north-south path across the county’s western side, the site of the bridge now sits on private property and isn’t a part of the county commission’s road maintenance system.

County commission chair Jeff Clemons, who remembers driving across the bridge years ago as a patrol deputy, estimates the structure dates from the 1940s — a time when a single lane was more than enough to serve its early purpose.

“Way back, we used to drive across it, and it was already an old bridge then,” says Clemons. “I recall, when I was patrolling, I went across it nearly every day. It was narrow — you couldn’t meet anybody on that bridge.

“It was scary to cross before they finally closed it and built the new one,” he adds, “and the reason they did that is, when Harmony School was built, the county went ahead and built a new section of road around it and installed a newer bridge. Of course a school bus couldn’t cross the old bridge — when you’d drive your car across it, you could see it swaying and hear it popping and cracking.”

Except where public roads pass through, the steep, heavily-timbered area up and down Crooked Creek makes for a natural barrier that deters all but the most determined visitors setting out to reach the creek’s banks. Nearly all of the property that bounds its shores is privately owned, either by local families, hunting enthusiasts, or larger foresting companies who prize its robust population of trees.

“If you haven’t lived in that community,” says Clemons, “you probably didn’t even know that that old bridge existed. It was a historic old bridge.”