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Sat May 5, 2007

Landmark to link history with new retail district

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Bethany consultant Tom Hoskison, left, and Oklahoma City Public Works Director Dennis Clowers pose near an old steel truss bridge over Lake Overholser, which will be restored for use as a pedestrian bridge. BY JOHN CLANTON, THE OKLAHOMAN
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By Robert Medley
Staff Writer
BETHANY — The 82-year-old bridge — rusty but still sturdy — links Tom Hoskison's memories and his plans.



Hoskison, Bethany's economic development consultant, was a passenger in his family's Model A Ford that crossed the bridge over Lake Overholser many times as a boy. His parents and sisters worked as migrant fruit pickers and farm laborers in the 1940s.

The bridge took them along State Highway 66, then known as Will Rogers Memorial Highway, en route to California, and back home.

Now the bridge, just outside Bethany city limits, is to be restored by Oklahoma City. The restored bridge will lead to a project Hoskison envisioned, a statue of Will Rogers in a small park at the Intersection of State Highway 66 and N Overholser Drive.

Oklahoma City's plan is to restore the bridge in 2008 and reopen it to pedestrian traffic only, said Dennis Clowers, Oklahoma City's public works director.

Clowers said Oklahoma City voters approved $4.3 million for the bridge restoration in 2000. "We probably won't need to spend that much,” he said, because less expensive methods of removing rust have been developed since 2000.

Money saved on the project will be used for other bridge work in Oklahoma City, he said.

A consultant will be hired soon to develop a plan to rehabilitate and repair the old steel truss bridge, which ties into the Lake Overholser walking and bicycle trails, he said.

"You don't see too many of these bridges left in urban areas,” Clowers said.

The bridge was opened in 1925 to cross Lake Overholser's north edge. The lake dam was built in 1917 with the lake opening in 1918. What is now SH 66 opened in 1926.

Hoskison, 79, said the bridge always will symbolize coming home to him.

The bridge has more significance ahead, he said, because it is only about 100 yards from a planned retail district in Bethany — to be called Bridge Pointe — with shops and restaurants similar to Moore's Riverwalk district. Construction on the project is expected to begin soon in an undeveloped area southeast of 8500 N Overholser Drive and 4000 E Overholser Drive, Hoskison said.

The bridge is an important attraction for the area, he said.

On May 15, the Bethany City Council is expected to hear a report from a group of University of Oklahoma students who have studied ways for Bethany to improve its downtown. The students also will present plans for a Will Rogers statue. The monument would cost Bethany about $3,500, Hoskison. The Willis Granite Products company of Granite has the molds to build the monument, he said.

"My dream is if Bethany approves the monument, we will dedicate it when Oklahoma City refurbishes the bridge,” Hoskison said. "It is a historic landmark. At one time the bridge was the vital link from the west to Bethany and Oklahoma City and it was also the exodus path out.”

Bethany owns the small bit of land where a "pocket park,” could be built for the statue with benches for motorists to stop near Lake Overholser's east side, he said.

The bridge on SH 66 is described in the 1939 book "The Grapes of Wrath.”

"It was an important bridge to transportation. John Steinbeck describes it in his book, driving over it. It is a novel but it is real,” Hoskison said.

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