According to an Associated Press story yesterday, something in Fulton County has been named to the watch list of endangered historic places. The story had about a sneeze’s worth of information, though, so I went in search of some more deets.
Apparently (according to this site) the item in need of preservation is the bridge in Bernadotte—pronounced by the locals sometimes as “Bernadette,” like as in Bernadette Peters, or “Bernie Dot” (which totally just makes me giggle every time I hear it).
But giggling aside, I hope the old bridge can indeed be saved, because, for among other reasons,
“…It spans the Spoon River in an area that gained notoriety after poet Edgar Lee Masters’ Spoon River Anthology was published 1915.”
PS: Thank Wikipedia for this helpful bit of history:
The unincorporated village of Bernadotte, in Fulton County, which is four miles north of Ipava on the Spoon River, has the distinction of having once been considered as the site for the capital of Illinois, prior to the capital being located at Vandalia in 1820. Vandalia was selected over Bernadotte by the difference of one vote.
(But Vandalia, of course, got the boot, too.)
Tags: bridges, EdgarLeeMasters, endangered, FultonCounty, landmarks, SpoonRiver, writers
