Does anyone remember this old foot bridge across Mill Creek? The Fauerbach family owned land on both sides of Mill Creek, and built the bridge so that family and workers on the farm could go back and forth with water and lunch.
I don’t remember when exactly, but in the mid-1960s, I went to the Fauerbach Farm with my dad fishing on Mill Creek. On the way home, we stopped to give Oscar Fauerbach and his sister Frances (who then lived in the house) some catfish. My Dad (John “Tim” Clark) and Oscar started visiting about the old bridge and I remember Oscar saying that there had been a larger wagon bridge in that same location which had been used by people who were trading or taking grain and produce to Rossville. That bridge was built by Franklin Adams and used as a toll bridge. Incidentally, I remember Oscar Fauerbach being very hard of hearing. He used an old fashioned ear trumpet at that time. I suppose his hearing loss might have been caused by farming equipment but I’m not certain. I don’t know when the footbridge was taken out or destroyed. I wish Blanche (Fauerbach) Wild was still alive. She could always fill me in on Fauerbach history.
Oscar and his sister Frances Fauerbach were the children of John and Mary Ann (Kalmer) Fauerbach, and the great niece and nephew of Henry and Charlotte (Kemp) Fauerbach who settled along Mill Creek in 1856. Both Henry and John came from Illinois at a very early time in the development of Maple Hill Township.
The photo that I’m using was donated to the Kansas State Historical Society by family members and is just one of several in the Fauerbach Collection that I’ll be talking about later. I don’t know who took the photograph.
Does anyone remember this Fauerbach Bridge or any other foot bridge built across Mill Creek? I’m sure there must have been others.
Incidentally, fishing on the Oscar and Frances Fauerbach (both never married) farm along Mill Creek was excellent and a favorite place of my father’s to teach. I don’t know who lives in the house now or if it still stands, but I remember it being very nice. Oscar and Frances had it fixed very comfortably.
