Bridges and Sepia Saturday "Sepians"

Why do I read Sepia Saturday? 
 To learn what I don't know already.  My interest in things ancient includes the visual, and sepia photos (of any topic) are learning about history, either mine, or those folks who posted them.

To see vicariously what I never would in person.  Posts are by folks in Australia, the UK, and various parts of the US, including 15 miles right down the road.  But Mike has a completely different set of  knowledge than I have, and I honestly would never have learned about the bands, the instruments, and the military connections that he weaves into his posts every week.  I'm frankly amazed.

I like making friends who I'd ordinarily not run into in my lifetime.  These folks have one thing in common, and that might just be it.  What an interesting bunch of people!

On learning new things...it's a scientific fact that it helps build new neuron pathways in a brain (mine) and helps prevent dementia.  Not just doing the same thing over and over, which only strengthens old neuron pathways...learning new ones.  Thanks Sepians!

Sepia Saturday...a great community, changing over the years, where bloggers share their oldest photos. A theme was suggested, and most of us followed it, unless we had something more interesting and we would sometimes post that non-related blog.

But bloggers are becoming few and far between.  I now send my blog posts over to FB, where I'm pretty sure more friends read them.

Why do I post on Sepia Saturday? 

It's a discipline that I sometimes enjoy, to sleuth out my own or other's photos on a topic, or at least most of the time on or near the topic.  It's like telling an artist to paint a tree.  Oh my goodness, all the varieties in the world are possible.

I can share my experiences with others and receive feedback from them.  I respect everyone who posts and comments...and I feel their respect back when they read and comment on my posts.  These  are short conversations...seldom more than a couple of sentences long.  But sometimes it spurs me to do something more with what has been posted.  And blog comments are more than FB comments and "likes."

I can archive my old photos under various topics this way...mainly the ancestry ones.  But I admit that I've veered away from them lately.

Perhaps there are limits to what resources I actually have, though I admit to using the internet when I run out of my own photos, to kind of pad my post.  I think I've done this because I never thought to take a picture of "this, that or another," which is something important in my life, and I really want to illustrate that.  Many photos of typewriters and telephones later, I'm grateful to have found them illustrated on the net.

I don't go antiquing like others do, and haven't purchased any old photos.  I've been sharing my own, having several boxes and albums which beg to be scanned still, but they are mainly of family members.  I think that I can post them only every once in a while here.

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So the bridge is the theme this week.  A link for transportation from one side of a river (?) to another.  Check out what other Sepians have contributed HERE.  Look at their names at the bottom of the page and click on them as links to their blogs.

I've lived near water all my life, though haven't ever been right on the water!  Bridges, oh my, let's see what I have to offer! (Additional clarification, never lived right on the edge of water, when I said I'd never been right on it!)
Let's go to St. Louis and the mighty Mississippi!

Daddy with those shoes! and Mary Beth on left, myself on right on Admiral

 Around 1951 summer, Riding the Admiral pleasure boat on the Mississippi.  Bridge in the background is the Eads Bridge, where cars traveled at the topmost level.  I believe trains traveled on a lower level.

Wikipedia gives this info: Opened in 1874, it was one of the earliest long bridges built across the Mississippi, the world's first all steel construction,^[5] and built high enough so steamboats could travel under

Barbara, Mary Beth and mom, Mataley Rogers

 Better shot of bridge in background, and a tug also, which was the trade on the Mississippi, pushing barges up and down the river.  And there's another bridge also in the background, perhaps the MacArther Bridge, or the Municipal Bridge, or now the Martin Luther King Bridge.

A 1930's view, dated since the roadway was removed for a time and only rail use remained after that.

The Admiral at Eads Bridge, when being towed after top deck had been removed.  It was turned into scrap in 2011.

Is this a third bridge from St. Louis, MO to cross to East St. Louis, IL in the background?  It may be just a view of the Eads as it nears land...where there are these arches. Yes that's me looking at my dad with camera, while Mother gives me the stink eye, and Mary Beth is just sitting there.  She's probably 4-5 and I'm 8-9...it was 1951-2.

Eads Bridge under construction, opened in 1874.

Eads Bridge showing the arches near land.

I'll do another post about the Admiral in the future.  An interesting history.