Oxford Rd. bridge replacement is underway

Work to replace a bridge that carries Oxford Road across a small stream bed near Bankhead Street (Highway 178) began Monday, June 22nd.

This particular segment of Oxford Road, about a half-mile long, runs east to west from Bankhead Street, behind Baptist Memorial Hospital-Union County, and connects to Coulter Drive.

The work started with Paul Smithey Construction Company of Tupelo demolishing the old bridge at the site. As seen in these photographs, Smithey Construction had several large pieces of equipment at work all day Monday in the demolition phase of the project.

Crane on east side of the old bridge removes components of the old bridge.

First crane hands old components across the stream to another piece of heavy equipment on the west side.

Machine on west side of stream picks up removed bridge component…

…and places it on truck on west side…

…which hauls the removed components away from the work site.

Because Smithey Construction is only handling the demolition of the old bridge, we could not get a good idea of how long this section of road will be out of use. NAnewsweb will follow up with subsequent articles as the project moves forward.