A hundred twenty years after it was first proposed, we can probably put this idea in the “So Glad it Didn’t Happen” category. In 1903, the plan to build a footbridge was not the only one being discussed. At the town meeting in August 1903, voters had approved the building of “a highway bridge at a cost not to exceed $75,000” and at a location to be selected at a later meeting. Of course, due to finances that eventually led to the building of the footbridge in 1906. But by 1903, the trolley had come to town. The Willimantic to Baltic line ended at the Main Street railroad crossing so that passengers who wished to continue up Main Street (the line through Willimantic went as far as Willimantic Cemetery) had to disembark one trolley and board another. Now, Melvin Lincoln proposed another bridge that would involve the excavation of an underpass beneath the railroad lines on lower Main Street and the building of a railroad bridge. He believed it would cost around $30,000 in order to eliminate the grade crossing there and enable trolley lines to be connected.  Although the town council estimated the cost to be about $50,000, a committee was nevertheless appointed to look into the building of a railroad bridge at the Main Street crossing. On October 27, 1903, the Board of Aldermen met to hear the proposal of the committee that had been appointed by Mayor Barrows. The committee had met with an “experienced engineer” and they had “thoroughly investigated the railroad crossings at Main, Union, Milk and Ash Streets”. They had also produced a map showing the properties adjoining the tracks. Of course, in Willimantic, nothing came easily. The railroad company wanted nothing to do with the project unless it involved the Union and Jackson Street crossing and the land between Main and Union Streets along the tracks as well. (Today’s photo shows the tracks as seen going across Main Street at a 36 degree angle, then going across the “middle ground” and across the Jackson and Union Street intersection at about a 45 degree angle). A massive amount of work would have been required. The grade of Main Street would be lowered at a grade of 6 percent beginning on the west side at the point where Main and Union Streets separated at Lincoln Square. When it reached the bridge, it would be almost eighteen feet below the top of the rail and fourteen feet below the bridge. Fortunately, topography was in the planners’ favor and the grade from the bridge to the east would have to ascend only three percent as far as Jackson Street. The bridge would have to be about a hundred feet long and would have to be truss construction. The cost of the bridge was estimated to be about $30,000 and the other work such as excavation, relaying of water pipes, curbs and gutters etc. would add another $15-20 thousand. Now, the committee addressed how to eliminate the Jackson and Union Street crossing. On the east side of the tracks, forty feet of the “John Hickey corner” as well as forty feet of “The American Thread Company corner” would have to be condemned. So too would the buildings of the Stiles and Harris Company and the William Barrows property, both of which sat on “the middle ground”. A street fifty feet wide was proposed for the “middle ground” so that those traveling south on Jackson Street would have to turn west on new, wider Union Street and, at the point of the Barrows land cross over to Main Street. On the west side of the tracks, it was proposed to lay out a street parallel to the west tracks that would connect Union Street to Main Street. By March, 1904, another committee had estimated that the cost of damages to be paid to the affected property owners would be $45,000. Another year went by and still there was no real agreement on what to do and several more plans had been devised. In 1905, however, the New Haven and New York Railroad said that the plan was just too expensive and would not take part in it. It may be interesting to ponder what would have been done at the time of Redevelopment if that bridge had been built.

Below are several old map sections and photos showing the areas and buildings that would have been affected by the project.

The “middle crossing” (Union Street as reconstructed) would have taken all the land lying between Main and Union Streets west of the railroad up to the land of Dennis Shea. That would have meant to condemnation of the buildings owned by W.D. Barrows and Stiles & Harrington. It’s unclear whether or not the Jillson House would have been condemned. All the land east of the railroad tracks and bounded by Main and Jackson would also have been condemned.

The change of grade of Main Street would have begun, “at a point opposite the middle line of the Cushman Building and descending easterly at a grade of 6% to a point seventeen feet, six inches below the top of the railroad rail”. From the east approach, “commencing at the east rail at the same depth and ascending at a grade of 3% to the east line of Jackson Street.

The “cut” would be 4 feet deep opposite Mrs. Hall’s building (17-19 Union Street), 6 feet deep opposite M.A. Sullivan’s Building (21 Union Street) seven and one half feet opposite Dennis Shea’s building (25-29 Union Street), ten and one-fourth feet opposite Barrow’s building and 14 feet opposite the land of Stiles and Harrington. East of the railroad crossing the cut would be nine feet opposite the American Thread Company land.