By Harlan Braudlume
When most folks walk across the Walnut Street Bridge in Chattanooga, they probably don’t think much about where it came from. To the casual stroller, it’s just a handsome old iron bridge with a postcard view of the Tennessee River.
The Walnut Street Bridge: A Hidden Dalton Connection
But if you’ve got Dalton roots, you can puff out your chest a little. That bridge is as much Whitfield County as it is Hamilton County.
The Walnut Street Bridge opened in the early 1890s, and it was a marvel of its day, spanning 2,376 feet across the river without a hiccup in its iron bones. Edwin Thacher drew up the plans, and the Smith Bridge Company of Toledo, Ohio pieced it together, but the muscle, bolts, and beams came from right here in Dalton.
Manly Jail Works: From Jail Cells to Iron Beams
The Manly Jail Works, yes, the same company better known for making jail cells, rolled out the steel parts, loaded them onto railcars, and shipped them north.
Now, I don’t know what it says about a place when its main export is jail cells, but Dalton never minded. Manly Jail Works had a good thing going. They turned out cells and lockboxes for courthouses across the country, and every small-town sheriff between here and Texas probably shut a door that rattled with Dalton iron. If you were a lawbreaker in the early 20th century, there was a fair chance your new address had “Made in Dalton, Georgia” stamped on it.
But every so often, Manly took on a project bigger than bars and bunks. The Walnut Street Bridge was their shining moment. Folks in Dalton could look north and say, “That bridge you’re walking across to Coolidge Park? Well, that’s partly us.” It wasn’t bedspreads, and it wasn’t carpet, but it was honest to goodness industry that tied two cities together.
A Lasting Legacy Beyond Carpet and Bars
The bridge has lived a few lives since then. Once a motorway, now a pedestrian walkway, it’s where couples take engagement photos and kids lick ice cream cones on hot summer days. Meanwhile, the old Manly Jail Works building still stands off Glenwood Avenue in Dalton, a rusting reminder that this town once built more than just carpet mills.
So next time you walk across the Walnut Street Bridge, tip your hat toward Dalton. The view may be Chattanooga, but the bones are pure Whitfield County.
