Fiddlers Ford Traditional Cache
*gln: ARCHIVING CACHE
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If you wish to repair/replace the cache sometime in the VERY near future, just contact us (by email), and assuming it meets the current guidelines, we'll be happy to unarchive it.
Thanks,
*gln, Mongo and Banjo-Boy
Your Missouri Geocache Reviewers
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This hide should be an easy park and grab. The cache is a small container, camouflaged to match it's hiding spot. It contains only a log, so BYOP. When I was a teenager, Fiddlers was a favorite spot for me and my buddies to go cool off in the summer, and remains today as a popular spot for the locals to escape the summer heat. I've placed the cache away from the main area to minimize exposure to Muggles.
This old bridge has served travelers crossing the Turnback since its construction by the Canton Bridge Company in 1911. It is an open truss “Pratt” style bridge, with a wooden single track deck. For its age, it is still in relatively good shape, especially considering the number of floods it has seen over the past 100 years. The daily estimated traffic over this bridge today is 30 vehicles.
This type of bridge was once common in the area, but most have now been replaced by modern, aesthetically un-appealing, stringer style concrete bridges. I think the only other open truss bridge that remains in Dade County is located at the old Hulston Mill site. If anyone knows of others, please let me know.
Prior to the bridge being constructed, the low lay of the land made this a natural crossing point, and was once a fairly common route between Everton and the Dade County Seat of Greenfield for freight and for anyone that had business at the Dade County Court House. Before the existence of this bridge, the execution of your business was left solely to the whim of Mother Nature, with high water rendering the usually timid stream impassable for days at a time. I have heard that Fiddlers Ford was once a bona fide town, but I have yet to find any reference to it in any of the materials I’ve read on the history of Dade County.
The area surrounding the bridge is now a Missouri Conservation area, with fishing and hunting opportunities. It’s a good easy launch site for a canoe, or to just kick back on a warm sunny spring day and hope for a hungry bass to take your bait.
Enjoy the very backwoods drive to this hidden treasure. Although the bridge structure is still rated as safe, progress will eventually catch up and it, too, will be gone for good.
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
P zrrgf ebhaq urer.