Rusk Footbridge

This wooden footbridge is 546 feet long and four feet wide, laid across the valley of College Creek in Rusk. A 1996 Austin Chronicle column said it served a functional and an aesthetic purpose, because the valley floods in the rainy season while in dry weather the bridge passes over a shaded park with picnic tables and a small brook. Texas Escapes calls it the longest footbridge in the United States and places it in Footbridge Garden Park, at the end of 5th Street at Lone Oak.

What the plaque says

Rusk Footbridge (546 feet long; 4 feet wide) First built 1861 as the means for residents east of valley to get to town during rainy seasons. Rebuilt in 1889 by T. H. Barnes, engineer building New Birmingham (now ghost town, to the east). Maintained by city of Rusk until 1950. Restored 1969 on plans by Barnes. (1969)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Caddo Mounds State Historic Site — 14 mi
  Three earthen mounds of an ancestral Caddo village and ceremonial center on the old El Camino Real, settled about A.D. 800 and still sacred to Caddo people, with a grass house and visitor center.
• Texas State Railroad Excursion Train — 25 mi
  A round trip of about 25 miles of track between the Palestine and Rusk depots through the Piney Woods, on a line built by prison labor and reopened as a tourist railroad in 1976.

More markers nearby

• Bachelor Girl's Library Club — steps away
• Cherokee County — steps away
• Cherokee County C.S.A. — steps away
• The Rusk Cherokeean — 0.2 mi