History Notes about the Barraba bridge

25th May 2022

History Notes

A small meeting this month but that didn’t stop much discussion among the members.  This week we are hoping to finish cleaning out the IGA hall on Thursday – lots of rubbish and a few gems among the debris.  The 1911 rate books are now finished unless we find one to cover the town blocks but it will have to be a Municipal Council volume.

The 1911 books have revealed a few unusual names but haven’t been able to reveal the one or two names we were after.  Perhaps another year may help.  In the meantime the names we do have are going into alphabetical order with the station name to perhaps help descendants in the future.

The Burdekin family history is now ready to go into the museum collection along with Barraba Creek Station – at least something gets done when the weather gets miserable.

Recently we had a visitor interested in the present Barraba Bridge.  This bridge replaced the old wooden one which has been asked about recently.  From the newspaper reports Barraba was very happy to have a new modern bridge when it was opened in 1935 – there was even a carnival to celebrate the event!!

The abutments from the old bridge are right beside the new one on the upstream side and are easily seen – possibly they may have kept the bridge in position in 1964 when the flood removed the road on the northern side. Walking across the present bridge is a hazard these days with the number of cars and trucks that are around.  There was an article in the newspaper in 1989 pointing out the danger to pedestrians crossing the bridge especially one elderly lady who crossed regularly. Council was determined to add a pedestrian walkway and it was mentioned, together with a photo, but we are still waiting 30 years later.  As there are very few football games held on the Recreation Ground these days and more people have cars, perhaps the danger has lessened.