Bridging the gap in history knowledge

The Manjimup Historical Society is trying to bridge the gap in knowledge of historic bridges in the local area with a new exhibit.

It will debut to coincide with the Manjimup Heritage Park Open Day and aims to inform people about some of more than 300 bridges that the historical society believes exist in the region.

Society president Margaret Jacob said the project began when the society went to inspect River Road Bridge as part of the Christmas get together.

“We got a lot of information about that, we had a look at it all, all the different building techniques that can be used in bridges which is amazing, and then we came back and said, we should look at more bridges,” she said.

“Then somebody made a big list of 300 bridges or something and we said alright, that’s a good start, we’ll go out and see which ones we can find and photograph, what is still there, what we can find out about them.”

Mrs Jacob said the bridges were important to the history of Manjimup because they allowedpeople to cross rivers in order to reach the town.

“It’s the only way that people could get here,” she said.

Eventually the bridges became used for transporting timber from logging areas to mills.

“There used to be lots of railways going out, way out, from the mills out to Tone,” she said.

“They were milling or felling timber out there and bringing it into the mills, so they needed lots of bridges and there are still some of those out there that we are finding.”

The exhibit will be open from 12pm to 6pm on Saturday at History House.