The Toll Bridge at Charlie? Byers?

I found this photograph, uploaded by the Clay County Historical Society, on the Portal to Texas History. It was labeled as the "toll bridge at Byers," but my nosy self is concluding that this may be a long-forgotten toll bridge between Charlie (Clay County, Texas) and Taylor's Store (Cotton County, Oklahoma). Neither the bridge, Charlie, Taylor's Store, nor the roads that once ran between them, really exist anymore.

As I was perusing the Portal to Texas History, looking for anything about the "Red River," I found a fantastic photograph attributed to the Clay County Historical Society of a four-span wire bridge. The only description is "Byers Toll Bridge over the Red River. Photo circa 1920: Byers, Texas."

But there's nothing else written about this awesome image. It depicts an incredibly long bridge, as the flood plain for the Red River in this part of the country is immense. The platform is made of planks, and the approach consists of dirt/mud. Though the photo is labeled "toll bridge," there is no toll house to be seen.

By doing some sleuthing, I've concluded that this photograph cannot be the "Byers toll bridge" -- instead, it's a long-forgotten toll bridge that once sat north of Charlie, Clay County, Texas, and it appears that this photo is from the time after it became a free bridge. Why would I conclude this? Keep reading!

First, the bridge at Byers, which was built in 1935, was a multi-span pony truss, not a wire/suspension bridge. It partially paralleled (or took the place of) a now-defunct railroad line. Sadly, this bridge that served TX79 no longer exists. Although it was placed on the National Register of Historic Places, the state replaced it with a really boring concrete structure in the early 2000s.*

Of course, it may have been that the 1935 bridge replaced an earlier one, but no maps indicate any bridges across the Red River at Byers until after 1935.

In 1999, Rick Mattioni captured this image of the doomed pony-truss bridge at Byers, Clay County, Texas. It's been replaced by a new bridge that carries travelers on TX 79. This photo, and a lot of great information about this bridge, is found at https://www.bridgehunter.com/bridges/29094.

The bridge depicted in the black and white photo, on the other hand, was built a decade earlier. In 1925, some enterprising men from Henrietta, Dallas, and Wichita Falls put $66,000 together to build a toll bridge "running from Henrietta through Petrolia and Charlie" (Times Record News, June 1925 & Wichita Falls Times, October 1925) to Taylor's Store in Cotton County, Oklahoma (Walters Herald, May 1925). They hired the Austin Bros Company from Dallas to build it, which was the same company that built the ill-fated Sowell Bluff and Telephone bridges in Fannin County.

Times Record, October 1925 (Wichita Falls newspaper).

Walters Herald, May 1925.

Today, Charlie is an unincorporated spot north of Henrietta that not many people call home, though once it was a fairly prosperous farming community that wanted to reach Oklahoma markets and entice tourists to visit during the Good Roads Movement. A road was graded from Henrietta to the Red River, which was designated TX 148. At the river, it met the toll bridge to reach Taylor's Store in Cotton County, Oklahoma, where the road, originally designated as OK 65, ended at US 70, aka the "Lee Highway." Like Charlie, Taylor's Store is not a destination on any modern maps.

In 1933, the state of Texas purchased the bridge, and by 1935, the bridge became free to travelers. Interestingly, it was called "the new bridge" in 1935, which makes me wonder if another bridge replaced the original one? And if so, was it due to flash floods that damaged the bridge in previous years? Or was there a purposeful destruction? Another photograph from the Clay County Historical Society depicts the "Charlie Toll Bridge" without the suspension supports, so the bridge depicted in the first photograph may have been replaced due to flooding or bad design.

The bridge at Charlie lasted until at least 1944, as official highway maps indicate. But thereafter, the bridge ceases to exist, as do OK 65 and TX 148. It's as if the toll bridge, Charlie, and Taylor's Store have been wiped clean from history, save for the photo that the Clay County Historical Society generously shared.

Now, if you want to travel from Henrietta into Oklahoma, you have to use the modern (boring) Byers bridge.

*While the National Register dates the bridge to 1939, I've found newspaper articles about the "Byers toll bridge" that date to 1935. For example, Governor Allred came to Byers in July 1935 to dedicate the toll bridge's opening according to the Times Record News from Wichita Falls. I've also found earlier references to a bridge across the Wichita River near Byers.

Links:

Photo at Portal to Texas History: https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth17106/

Photo at Portal to Texas History: https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth16514/

National Register for Byers Bridge: https://atlas.thc.texas.gov/NR/pdfs/96001518/96001518.pdf

Bridge Hunter: https://www.bridgehunter.com/bridges/29094

Another photograph from the Clay County Historical Society is of "the bridge at Charlie" and is dated in the 1930s. There are no supports like the bridge depicted above, which makes me wonder if this more utilitarian structure replaced the grandiose look of the former bridge.

The official state highway map of Texas from 1936 shows a bridge spanning the Red River along TX 148 north of Charlie. By this point, the bridge was no longer tolled. While Byers is on the map, no bridge into Jefferson County, Oklahoma is indicated yet.

The 1938 official Oklahoma highway map pretends that Texas is but a ghost, but if you squint, you can see that there's a bridge at Charlie going into Cotton County, and a bridge going into Jefferson County, but poor Byers isn't named.

By the time this official Oklahoma highway map was published in 1955, neither Byers nor Charlie in northern Clay County, Texas were named, but the old road to the toll bridge at Charlie is still marked (as a dirt road). But look, there's Taylor in Cotton County, aka Taylor's Store back in the day. And TX 79 is now the improved road that leads to Jefferson County.