ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, July 14, 1996 TAG: 9607150090
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: EAGLE ROCK
SOURCE: MATT CHITTUM STAFF WRITER
ONCE THE TOWN'S PRIDE, the deteriorating bridge is becoming a symbol of decline.
Times were good in Eagle Rock 60 years ago, and the fanciest of bridges at the entrance to town proved it to every visitor.
The sleepy village carved into the side of a mountain by the James River was something of a boom town then. A lime works had opened up in town. People had jobs, there were stores and theaters, houses were being built, and little Eagle Rock was connected to the world by its new bridge.
The truss-style bridge was state of the art when it was built in 1933 - a symbol of the town's prosperity in the midst of a national depression. It spanned a pristine stretch of the James, linking the village to what is now U.S. 220, the main thoroughfare through rural Botetourt County.
But the lime works folded in 1954, taking 100 jobs from a settlement of just a few hundred people. The string of storefronts that had sprung up along the railroad began to empty. A Chevrolet dealership, the mill and a hardware and feed store clung to life for a while, but were more or less washed away by the muddy James River's intrusion into town in 1985.
"I remember when you could get anything you wanted here," said Bill Simmons, owner of Eagle Rock Funeral Home. "Now you can't buy a nail."
The iron and concrete bridge still stands, but just barely, its weight limit reduced to 10 tons. Eagle Rock's fire trucks are too heavy for it. So are snowplows and busloads of school kids. Patched in places with baling wire and wood, the deteriorating marvel is becoming a symbol of the town's decline.
Once the lifeblood of the town, it is becoming the bane of Eagle Rock's existence.
For six years, Eagle Rock's determined residents, led by a more determined woman named Dee Dee Bruce, have entreated the Virginia Department of Transportation to repair the bridge or replace it. For six years, VDOT has merely bandaged it to keep the weight limit from falling further. Some money was spent on an engineering study, but that's it.
Last month, VDOT completed its 1996-97 six-year plan for transportation system improvements. Eagle Rock's bridge was passed over one more time, and probably forever.
"I think the chances of getting funding, well, the odds are not too great," said Fred Altizer, Salem district administrator for VDOT. Altizer said he sympathizes, but in the big picture of the state's transportation system, Eagle Rock's problems are small, expensive and way down the list.
"I know the folks may not want to hear that, but from my perspective, that's the reality."
If the bridge closes, busy U.S. 220 will suddenly be four miles farther away and the tiny pockets of commerce left in the village will be even more isolated from potential customers.
"That'll almost ruin what's left here," Simmons said.
"Well, I knew it wouldn't be on the plan," a jaded Dee Dee Bruce said. "It hasn't been on there the past six years, why should it be now?"
Like the bridge itself, met on each end by a high wall of shale, Eagle Rock is between a rock and a hard place.
In pleading for a new bridge, Eagle Rock is asking the state to spend about $3 million to aid a community of about 300 people. The average bridge in this area, VDOT engineers say, costs about a tenth of that. But Eagle Rock needs a bridge across a deep gorge and a railroad track, with pilings sunk in the river. That's not cheap.
What's more, though traffic on the bridge is not heavy, it's labeled Virginia 43Y and considered part of the primary road system. That means it competes for money with every other primary road project in the district, from a simple road widening to the massive "smart" road project in Montgomery County.
In the game of cost/benefit analysis, Eagle Rock winds up on the losing side of a lopsided score.
"We're just in the wrong part of the state and the wrong part of the county," Bruce said.
She has lived in Eagle Rock her whole life, and she takes the fight for the bridge personally. She calls the crumbling span "my bridge."
"I'm bitter," she said. She has fought this battle on every level from the local VDOT office to state Secretary of Transportation Robert Martinez, with whom she met last month.
When the fight for the bridge began six years ago, it was because the weight limit was reduced to 10 tons - too low for the department's three fire trucks. That left the fire department with a five-minute detour on nearly half its calls, down a road frequently littered with rock slides.
"That's the difference between [a burning house being] fully involved and on the ground," Eagle Rock Fire Chief Darryl Johns said.
"I realize that the [fire department's] response time is very critical," VDOT's Altizer said. "I can see that, and understand it." But by VDOT standards, four miles is not an "unreasonable" detour. Radford's Memorial Bridge, a $10 million project now on VDOT's six-year plan, would cause a 20-mile detour if it were closed.
It all comes back to the bridge being part of the primary road system. Even within Botetourt County, the Eagle Rock bridge is a low priority next to the upgrading of U.S. 11 in the burgeoning southern end of the county and the four-laning of U.S. 220 between Eagle Rock and Alleghany County.
Then there's the smart road, which could cost upward of $100 million when it's done in 15 or 20 years.
It all leaves the folk in Eagle Rock feeling like stepchildren.
"If they don't want any bridges in the Ellett Valley, we'll take the smart road off of them," said Harold Cook, the owner of Zell's Market, Eagle Rock's only store. "We don't have a coneflower or a jumping ground squirrel to be endangered down here. They can come to Eagle Rock and build all the bridges they want."
Cook, who sits on the Botetourt County Planning Commission, says losing the bridge would mean little to a business like his. He says he's going to close in a few years anyway. He jokes about the impending loss of the bridge, but there's a bite in his words that reveals his disgust.
"We need to use some psychology on them," he said. "Tell them we don't want it, and they'll come in here and force it down our throats. Tell them we need a ferry boat. It'll be a tourist attraction, and we can charge double for state highway department vehicles."
Mention the bridge to Mildred Fridley, one of the owners of the Eagle Rock Restaurant, and she cuts straight to the indignation.
The restaurant depends heavily on the 195 workers from Gala Industries for business. The chemical and plastics processing equipment manufacturer is about four miles south of Eagle Rock on Route 220.
But if the bridge is closed, Fridley said, those workers might just as well choose to head south to Bill's Seafood in Fincastle as drive an extra four miles to Eagle Rock.
"Can you do without a car?" she snapped. "Well, we can't do without a bridge."
Bruce has vowed not to give up the fight until someone says Eagle Rock will never get a bridge. She's working with Sen. Malfourd "Bo" Trumbo, R-Fincastle, to get a meeting with Gov. George Allen.
If the bridge closes, VDOT will clean up Virginia 43 to make it a safe passage into town, Altizer said. The weight limit on the bridge will likely be reduced again, probably before the year is over. Soon after that, the bridge probably will be closed and removed.
Meanwhile, work is expected to begin soon on the widening of U.S. 220 from Eagle Rock north. That has become a priority job, Altizer said. It is believed it will help link the entire region from the Allegheny Highlands to the New River Valley and increase economic development.
All that traffic will be tantalizingly close to Eagle Rock.
"Eagle Rock's about dried up as it is," said Steve Vaughn, a mail carrier and lifelong Eagle Rock resident. "Isn't anybody going to come down here that oesn't have to."
LENGTH: Long : 147 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: PHILIP HOLMAN/Staff. 1. Dee Dee Bruce is one of severalby CNBEagle Rock residents lobbying the Virginia Department of
Transportation to fix up the bridge into town. The dilapidated
trestle bridge, which connects Eagle Rock to U.S. 220, has been
restricted to vehicles weighing less than 10 tons. 2. Eagle Rock is
using wood and baling wire to hold together parts of the crumbling
bridge. The bridge's weight limit is so low that fire trucks and
rescue vehicles must go four miles out of their way when responding
to many calls. color. Map by staff.