Bridges Over the Brazos

The Brazos River meanders 923 miles from the Texas Panhandle to the Gulf of Mexico, crossing the High Plains, the West Texas Lower Rolling Plains, the Western Cross Timbers, the Grand Prairie, and the Gulf Coastal Plain. Journalist Jon McConal has spent many hours hiking the river’s banks and camping out on its sandbars, discovering the many bridges that cross the river, and studying maps and tracing the river’s route. His friend Eddie Lane has canoed and camped the Brazos, even retracing the canoe journey made famous by John Graves in Goodbye to a River. The two drove more than four thousand miles to look at sixty-two bridges ranging from a private bridge made from oil-field pipe to modern concrete structures. They stood on the bridges and watched the river, sometimes loaded with trash, sometimes serene and gentle. They met the people who lived near the bridges, heard their stories, and are in local cafes. This is the story of two men with a love of the out-doors and the Brazos River and the people they met along their journey. They hope readers, too, will want to take a few day trips and explore the Brazos and its bridges.