Iconic Harlan County bridge sees 100 years

One of Harlan County’s most unique bridges hit its 100th anniversary recently, with a celebration of the long-time structure held at the Harlan Center on Saturday, July 27.

The bridge is on KY 840, crossing the Cumberland River in Baxter near the well-known coal monument.

Bronwyn Haynes, Historic Harlan Museum Director, talked about the event during an interview at the event.

“We’re celebrating the KY 840 Baxter Bridge,” Haynes said. “It was built in 1924.”

Haynes pointed out the celebration included multiple activities.

“We’ve got a lot of things going on,” Haynes said. “We’ve got a cake in the shape of the bridge, we’ve got an art contest with about 25 entries, and we have a new exhibit about the history of the bridge.”

The celebration featured a specialty cake recreating the bridge and the surrounding area with remarkable accuracy.

“We have Brandi Romines, she is from Cumberland,” Haynes said. “She made the bridge cake for us, it looks wonderful.”

Romines operates Happy as a Lark Cakes in Lexington. She said the cake took nearly a week to create.

“I’ve had maybe 12 hours of sleep since Sunday,” Romines said. “The bridge alone took about 24 hours, because everything had to be precision measured so everything would line up and fit together. The prep work has been going on for two months.”

Romines started baking while in college.

“I’ve been baking for about 28 years,” Romines said.

Romines has been baking full time commercially for approximately 14 years.

“It was a side hustle that turned into a full-time job,” she said.

Romines has her own memories involving the bridge.

“As a kid, I remember going across that bridge in a car,” Romines remembers. “You could still drive across it even after the bypass opened. I remember we used to beg my mom to go the other way just so we could go across the bridge.”

The bridge was built wide enough to accommodate just one car at a time.

“I remember us pulling over and waiting on another car,” Romines said. “Just being from here, it’s so special to get to do anything to commemorate something from home.”

According to Haynes, the idea for the celebration originated with Harlan City Tourism Director Brandon Pennington.

“Brandon came to me with the idea almost three months ago,” Haynes said. “He came up to me and told me they wanted to have a celebration to honor the bridge.”

Once a major part of travel in the area, the bridge has not been in use for many years. Traffic now passes over that section of the Cumberland River via the US 421 bypass.

“As of now, there are no real plans to do anything with the bridge,” Pennington said.

Pennington pointed out putting the state-owned bridge back into usable condition would require a large investment.

“As of now, there isn’t an official organization that’s planning on doing anything with it, but I do know there is a group of local volunteers that has started diligently trying to clean it up and make it look more presentable.”

The history of the bridge dates back to the 1920s.

“In 1924, the Transportation Cabinet built three of these types of bridges in Harlan County, they’re known as a Baltimore Petite bridge,” Pennington said. “There were only six of them built in the state of Kentucky. Three were built in 1924 here in Harlan, as for the other three, one is in Boyle County, one is in Frankfort, and the other one we haven’t been able to locate yet.”

The KY 840 Baxter Bridge is the last of its kind in Harlan County.

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