Historic Tuscaloosa's Memory Of The Week: Black Warrior River Pontoon Bridge (1922)

Editor's Note: As part of an ongoing partnership with our friends at Historic Tuscaloosa, Patch will be bringing you a quick piece of local history per week provided by those working hard to preserve the memories of our community.

TUSCALOOSA, AL — The final installment of 2023 for Historic Tuscaloosa's Memory of the Week takes us back to the roaring 1920s to put the spotlight on a mostly forgotten piece of local infrastructure.

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Historic Tuscaloosa's Event & Digital Media Coordinator Sarah-Katherine Helms provided a photo from 1922 of the former pontoon bridge that had been temporarily placed across the Black Warrior River between Tuscaloosa and Northport, which was used during the construction of the former drawbridge.

"Roads to the bridge used the old Tuscaloosa and Northport wharves," Helms pointed out. "This picture looks north at the old Moore's Gin warehouse in Northport. Traffic was on a scheduled hourly rotation for land and river traffic."

The Tuscaloosa Area Virtual Museum says the drawbridge that connected Northport and Tuscaloosa was built in 1922 at a cost of about $200,000 and was the sixth bridge built over the Black Warrior River.

As a fun side note for local history buffs, prominent Northport businessman Sam Palmer (Bill) Faucett Jr. — the father of celebrated local businessman and former Northport Mayor Sam P. Faucett III — was the first motorist to cross the new drawbridge.

Still, there were structural issues with the drawbridge and it would eventually be replaced by the Hugh Thomas Bridge in 1972.

"The draw span lifted for boat passage, but often ... its supposedly delicately balanced weights often jammed and kept motorists waiting until workmen could realign the draw," the Tuscaloosa Area Virtual Museum says.

Shifting our focus back to the pontoon bridge, though, one article published in the Tuscaloosa News on Dec. 12, 1922, said the pontoon bridge was dismantled that month.

"After all traffic had been stopped late Saturday night, the pontoon bridge was dismantled and tied up at the banks on account of the heavy current and Sunday, the many travelers caught on the wrong side of the river were ferried across in skiffs," one newspaper scribe penned.

One noteworthy incident, though, came when a motorist tempted fate by trying to take an alternate, and quite dangerous route, to get from one bank of the river to the other.

"One man yesterday drove a Studebaker car across the M&O Railroad trestle, from Northport to Tuscaloosa, his act causing quite a bit of excitement among the throngs at the new bridge that had gathered to view the river," the newspaper reported.

What's more, the Tuscaloosa News said two Ford cars, parked near the Northport approach to the pontoon bridge when the drivers walked across, were completely lost to sight under about seven feet of water and "were only salvaged by means of block and tackle."

Thankfully, no one was injured apart from the submerged vehicles and the events made for an interesting day, if nothing else, for all who attended.

Click here to learn more about our friends at Historic Tuscaloosa and be on the lookout for the next installment of our Memory of the Week.

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