A colorized photograph of Robert E. Woodside, Attorney General of Pennsylvania, and Gov. John S. Fine, examining a bill that the governor signed that would have built an extension of the turnpike through the Lykens Valley to Carlisle, Cumberland County. The turnpike would have crossed the Susquehanna River just north of Millersburg. Although the road and bridge had more than sufficient funding from a bond issue, several persons involved went to jail for illegal use of the funds and the project was abandoned.
Judge Robert E. Woodside, in his memoir published in 1979, My Life and Town, explained some of the attempts to build a Susquehanna River bridge at or near Millersburg. None of the attempts were successful.
THE BRIDGE THAT NEVER WAS
A book could be written on “the bridge at Millersburg.” I heard Ray Bowman tell my father in 1919 that he believed from his talk with Governor Brumbaugh that the bill which Senator Ed Beidleman had gotten through the legislature making an appropriation to build a bridge across the Susquehanna River from Millersburg to Crow’s Landing would be signed. The governor vetoed it.
Several unsuccessful efforts were subsequently made to appropriate the funds to build the bridge. When I was a member of the legislature in 1933, federal money became available for such projects and Gifford Pinchot‘s Secretary of Highways, Sam Lewis, applied for funds to build bridges at Millersburg, Middletown and Holtwood. We assembled hundreds of pages of statistics and arguments for the Millersburg bridge, and had high hopes. None of the projects received federal approval. The Roosevelt Administration wasn’t interested in Republican-sponsored projects, and when the democrats took over Pennsylvania in 1935 they had other projects in mind.
In the thirties and forties, a con man made a living selling stock for the construction of a private toll bridge across the river at Millersburg. He collected reams of statistics, letters and documents, many fradulent, and even parked an old steam shovel near Mt. Patrick to convince his victims that start of construction was imminent. Local people didn’t invest, but some living further away did. The local banks, Ray Bowman and I prevented loss by those who were cautious enough to check with local people befeore investing.
When it became clear that I would leave the legislature for the bench, Governor Arthur James called me into his office to thank me for my efforts in the legislature on his behalf. As Majority Floor Leader, I had served the Administration faithfully and successfully under difficult circumstances. I had not mentioned the Millersburg bridge to him for over two years, but out of the blue he said, “Bob, I know your interest in a bridge at Millersburg. I’m going to build it.” I was astonished, but pleased, and thanked him. A few weeks later, bombs fell on Pearl Harbor. They destroyed all hope for a bridge at Millersburg. With war priorities, no money or materials for our bridge were available. I never mentioned it to James again.
Shortly thereafter the national interstate road system was adopted, and several routes for I-81 were being considered. One involved crossing the river near Dauphin, tunneling through Peters Mountain and recrossing the river near Mt. Patrick, thence along the west side of the river to Northumberland and then through the Bloomsburg-Berwick area to Wilkes-Barre and Scranton. Much could be said for this route, which was enthusiastically supported by one of Governor Leader’s Deputy Secretaries of Highways. Leader had said in his speech at our Sesquicentennial celebration, “Millersburg should have and will have a bridge.” As we all know, the road was constructed more directly from Harrisburg to Scranton, and Leader didn’t build a bridge.
I tried, a few others tried, and many politicians promised to have a bridge built at Millersburg. But, we still have the ferry. I no longer regret our failure. With the publicity, the history, and the sentiment that chugs along with those boats still winding their way across the river at one of its most beautiful spots, only a heartless pragmatist would say today, “It’s too bad we haven’t replaced it with a bridge.”
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Photo caption:
Governor John S. Fine shows his Attorney General [Robert E. Woodside] the bill he just signed authorizing the construction of a turnpike from the northern extension in Schuylkill County to Carlisle. The route would have gone through Lykens Valley crossing the Susquehanna north of Millersburg. The cost of construction of the northern extension of the turnpike was $19,000,000, less than the sum realized from the bond issue. With this nest egg, financing the extension to Carlisle would have been easy. Unfortunately, the Commissioner used the sum for other purposes, some illegal, sending some commissioners and others to jail. The road was never built.
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Photo and text from My Life and Town, by Robert E. Woodside.
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