On Tuesday’s bike ride I crossed the Mississinewa Reservoir at the Red Bridge. I have no idea why it’s called the Red Bridge, though.
The near side of the Mississinewa River had been the home of Miami people who had resisted deportation to the west in the 1830s-1850s. They had reserves here through the 1870s, and had lived along the river even after the land had been “allotted,” or converted to private property.
In his 1996 book on the Miami Indians of Indiana, Stewart Rafert explains how those who remained continued to function as a tribal community despite the best efforts of the federal government to act as though the tribe didn’t exist. In the 1960s, while this struggle was still going on, Congress funded the contruction of the dam that created the reservoir and recreation area shown here. It was disruptive to tribal identity. Rafert writes:
In all, two-thirds of the former Miami Indian land between Peru and Marion was affected. The lower Mississinewa area had been the center of Miami population and life since the late eighteenth century, the site of at least five villages, communal fields, many burial sites, and the focus of subsistence when more distant hunting territories were settled. All the Miami reserves from Peru to Marion were connected by extensive trails and several fords across the river….Tribal councils and meetings were held in homes along the river….As recently as the 1930s the rivers had been an important source of subsistence, and Miami continued to hunt and fish along the Mississinewa and Wabash.”
The Miami people were especially upset because tribal cemeteries were located in the land that was going to be flooded. The graves that were made known to the Army Corps of Engineers were moved, but that didn’t ease the anger and resentment.
The next destination for was to one of the cemeteries that was relocated.
YTD mileage: 1022.0
In the 1940′s and earlier there was a small community named Red Bridge where a steel truss bridge cossed the river at this point. The county road descended down to the river and climbed up the other side. The bridge had been painted Red (probably to inhibit rust) but when I saw it around 1945 it had faded to a humous pink. On the North end was a filling station, a “country” store and a couple of houses. Along the river to the West were several “cabins” perched up on the limestone cliffs overlooking the river. A family we knew named Barnett lived in one and as teenagers we “roamed” the Francis Slocum Trail spending many happy afternoons playing at being “Indians” during those lazy Hoosier summer days.
[...] Jacoutot left an interesting comment about the Red Bridge, explaining how there had once been an actual red bridge across the Mississinewa. He described how [...]
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