Toll Bridge & Old Bridgeport
FM 920 and Trinity
River Bridge,
just west of Bridgeport
When Butterfield Overland
Mail traversed this area (1858-61) on St. Louis to San Francisco
route, a crossing over West Fork of the Trinity was a necessity.
Colonel W. H. Hunt on February 11, 1860, obtained a charter and
built a toll bridge here (50 yards west). The Overland Mail ceased
operating as Civil War began. The bridge soon collapsed. However,
a settlement had begun here, and in 1873 Charles Cates, a Decatur
merchant, spanned the river with an iron bridge. When the Rock Island
Railroad built to this point in 1893, the town moved but retained
its historic name.
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