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Health & Fitness

The Sutliff Bridge is Beautifully Restored and I Couldn't Be Happier!

The Sutliff Bridge's third span, washed away by the 2008 Flood, has been beautifully untangled and restored. The entire bridge is restored, with side safety panels and new planks to walk on.

How could anyone call the Sutliff Bridge "the bridge to nowhere"? It's an historic bridge over the Cedar River in one of most scenic spots in all of Iowa. 

Rita Brannaman, one of the original Sutliffs, talked me and my then seven-year-old son into going down the little dirt access road to see the Sutliff Bridge on our first leg of RAGBRAI in 1991. She was selling T-shirts and shorts with pictures of the Sutliff Bridge on them to raise money to keep authorities from condemning the Sutliff Bridge. I bought one of each for my husband, who had to work while Jesse and I were trying our first RAGBRAI. (Sarah, our youngest, was two and taking her afternoon nap at "Kiddie Ketter," a.k.a. Kiddie Konnection.)

Sutliff, the Cedar River, and the Sutliff Bridge enchanted me. We walked our bikes over the bridge's planks to the Baxa Bar, which started out as a country store in 1899, on the other side. I like that building, too. It fits in with the rest of the scenery because most of it is as old as the bridge.

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Janelle Rettig, Robin Butler, Rod Sullivan, Terrence Neuzil, and his wife, Amy Neuzil, were there. So was Jim Graves, who gave us some of the history of the bridge. I talked to an elderly man in his nineties at Baxa's once. He'd lived in Sutliff all of his life. He told me that people used to drive over that bridge. It was hard to imagine, with all the loose planks, but it wouldn't be hard to imagine now that it's restored, although it's closed to vehicular traffic. 

The 90-something year old Sutliff resident gave me the Sutliff hat on his head. I wouldn't have taken it, but he said he had many more. That hat means a lot to me. I forgot to wear it to the bridge dedication, but my husband Jim wore a Sutliff hat at the dedication.

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The bridge is safe now. It has removable side panels that Janelle showed me. The removable safety panels keep people from falling in the river but could be taken off during a flood so debris could flow over the bridge instead of jamming up and taking out the bridge, or part of it. All of the planks are replaced now for foot traffic and bicycle traffic. There's no picnic benches on the bridge yet, like before, but maybe there will be.

Cider, cookies, and little cupcakes were set up on the side of the bridge for treats. I had cider on the bridge and ran into one of my neighbors, a kind woman who used to give our son Jesse Easter, Christmas, and Halloween candy when he delivered her newspapers when he was 10. Her name is Helene Hembreiker, and she came with a 90-year-old friend, Eileen Armbruster. Eileen still drives and walked the full length of the bridge and back.

Helene Hembreiker made an excellent speech about predatory lending as a member of CCI at a recent Iowa City Council meeting, if that helps to identify her.

She's very well spoken and talked to me about being Irish. I told her I found out through from a distant cousin that I'm partly Irish, which I didn't know. Then Helene told me about the DVD documentary, "The Blood of the Irish," which I aim to see. Apparently, there was oral history about Basque lineage in some of Irish, possibly "the black Irish," but I'm not sure. We had a nice chat on our lovely bridge, beautifully restored and preserved.

At the time, county supervisor Rod Sullivan defended his vote to restore the Sutliff Bridge by saying that our living history needs to be preserved, and I agree with him. Janelle Rettig, and Terrence Neuzil, all of whom voted for the Sutliff Bridge. Pat Harney voted against it. I haven't forgotten their votes, either. I want Johnson County Supervisors with vision, citizens who value the beauty of our natural spaces still left to preserve. Once those spaces are gone, we can't get them back.

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