Pudding Creek Tresto Duotone

by Shirley Mangini

Title

Pudding Creek Tresto Duotone

Artist

Shirley Mangini

Medium

Photograph - Photograph

Description

Pudding Creek Trestle in duotone by Shirley Mangini
**Featured Image**

Pudding Creek Trestle
Ten Mile River is, give or take, ten miles north of Fort Bragg, The Union Lumber Company constructed the Ten Mile Railroad between 1915 and 1916 to bring logs from the 10 Mile River drainage area to the mill. The line ran north from the mill past over Pudding Creek. The railroad stopped operations in June 1949 and the railway roadbed was then converted into a road. After the railway was removed the Pudding Creek trestle became part of the road system that was used to haul logs - hence the locals name for the road on the south side of the trestle, the Haul Road.
The Pudding Creek Trestle is an icon for Fort Bragg. It was the first of five trestles between the ULC and Camp One some 9 plus miles north. It has 34 uprights each 44 feet high and is 527 feet long. The trestle you see today is different from the way it was originally built. The original trestle was for a railway and had a walkway between the rails.
After the 10 Mile Railway was torn up in 1949 the bridge was significantly reinforced when it became part of the haul road. The trucks that were used to haul the lumber were specially built off-road monsters with a 10 foot wheel span and were not allowed on "regular" roads. The trestle had additional uprights added as well as many longitudinal members.
Look carefully at the trestle from the road. No, your eyes do not deceive you. The trestle does go downhill. It has an 0.75 per cent grade in fact. This means that the Fort Bragg end is 4 feet higher than the other which is why the fireman of the train made sure the engine had a full head of steam when they approached Fort Bragg. It also might explain why there are no pictures of a train with a full load stopped on the bridge.
When first constructed there was a nice flat beach that had a boardwalk and dressing cabins built by the Fort Bragg Bachelor's Club as a public service. How did the sand hill get there? Who replenishes it? The wind, which picks up the sand on the sea side of the trestle and because of the impedance of the bents drops the sand on the road side. The trestle is in excellent shape. It has become part of the State Park system. The trestle was only recently converted into a bike path and walkway, part of the Haul Trail that extends to 10 mile Beach.
Looking up Pudding Creek to the east from the road you can see the dam. Behind this dam there used to be a huge log pond which held up to 20 million feet of timber. This log pond serviced the first Fort Bragg Mill.

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July 25th, 2014

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