Lawrence County is a land of many creeks, so it should come as no surprise that the county is also home to 195 bridges.

According to the Tennessee Department of Transportation, the oldest operating bridges in Lawrence County are 2 concrete tee-beam bridges and 2 concrete culverts on Pulaski Highway, just east of Lawrenceburg, all of which were built in 1929.

The iconic old steel truss bridge which crosses Crowson Creek on the Old Waynesboro Highway, across from the entrance of David Crockett State Park in Lawrenceburg, was built in 1933.

Of Lawrence County’s many bridges, only one is currently rated as structurally deficient by the State of Tennessee (as of its inspection of June 10, 2013). Bridge number 500A1150001, where Oaks Road crosses the West Fork of the Buffalo River, just southeast of Henryville, and just east of the intersection of Oaks Road and Henryville Road, was given a sufficiency rating of 45.4 by the Tennessee Department of Transportation. This bridge was built in 1984 of prestressed concrete.

The Oaks Road bridge’s location is marked by the red balloon on this map.

However, state officials assure us that a bridge’s structural deficiency rating is no cause for panic. As TDOT spokeswoman Heather Jensen told reporters from WSMV-TV, “Just because a bridge is structurally deficient doesn’t mean it’s unsafe.”

Source: Google Earth