Repairing The 8th St. Bridge
Fixing the 8th Street Bridge was very important. Residents where forced to travel a lot of extra miles to reach their destination. With the current prices of gasoline, this isn’t good. It is especially essential for residents living in the area that presently have to travel 7 miles going east on Baldwin Rd., turn left on Forman Rd. for approximately a mile to US 10. Turn left on heading west on US 10 another 7 miles to get to Baldwin’s Business District area. Here’s the kicker, the exact same process in reverse has to be initiated to return home. EMS, law enforcement and the fire department encounter these same obstacles, putting area residents in peril.
The top (left) photo was taken in 1914. The two additional photos are images of the newly constructed bridge.
The 8th St. Bridge connecting the Village of Baldwin to Idlewild, MI had been shutdown since 2018. That was the year several tornadoes ripped through the area, uprooting trees, causing property, and infrastructure damage. Tornadoes not only affected the route many travelled, the banks of the Baldwin River were also severely eroded. This complicated the 8th Street Bridge’s repair and construction process. Although the process to repair the bridge began before I was elected, I was elated to see the project through to its completion in June of 2022. The failure to complete the bridge was attributed to those in office, and rightly so. And I’ll be damn if I should be remiss in touting its successful completion. “I got the Damn bridge fixed!”
