became a small mail station on
the road between Waco and Fort
Belknap, farther north in present-day
Young County.
Like many early North Texas
towns, Balch went by other names
as well — Irby, after a prominent
rancher along the Brazos River; New
Prospect; and finally Tin Top. A
cotton gin built here in 1909 sported
a galvanized tin roof that could be
seen for miles around, especially
when the hot summer sun caught it
just so.
It was 1949 when the few commu-
nities of the area just south of
Weatherford — Balch, Horseshoe
Bend and Hightower — banded
together under the name Tin Top.
Tin Top Suspension Bridge, beg un
in 1902 and completed in 1906, was
ripped down by a flood in 1982.
(Or, depending on the source, it
collapsed under the weight of snow
Jan. 31, 1982. Yet another source
says the antiquated bridge plunged
into the Brazos in 1983, “a victim of
long neglected maintenance.”) The
purpose of the bridge, of course, was
to connect communities south of the
Brazos with those to the north. Until
its erection, apparently, people living
south of the river felt more closely
associated with Hood County than
Parker.
The proper name of the bridge
changed last year when the Texas
Historical Commission voted Jan.
29, to approve a name change to
the Tin Top Suspension Bridge Piers,
as the piers are all that is left of the
structure. The name, according to the
THC, “reflects the loss of the bridge
1982.”
Though most of it is gone, it was
listed in the National Register of
Historic Places in 1983.
Of course not everyone is on the
right side of the ever-turning wheels
of progress. (Is it a steamroller?) A Mr.
Brannon ran a successful ferry busi-
ness on the Brazos upstream from
Hightower Valley, which encom-
passed the area addressed here. His
old-tech business went kaput once
the Mitchell & Pigg bridges of the
area were in place. The commu-
nity at the site named the bridge
Brannon’s Crossing. No doubt flat-
tered by the sentiment, it’s unclear
what Mr. Brannon turned his hand to
next.
BLAIR VALLEY
This community lay south of the
Brazos across from Tin Top and was
named for a man named Blair who
settled there in the late 1850s. He
was a saddle tree maker by trade and
reportedly lived in a cabin with a
most unseemly entrance. “One had to
crawl on all fours to get inside.” If Mr.
Blair lived to old age in the cabin, he
most assuredly regretted the entrance
scheme decided upon when his limbs
were limber and joints sure.
Sources:
• Handbook of Texas Online
• parkerchc.org
Texas Almanac
Jim Wheat’s Postmasters and Post
Offices of Texas
“Bridges Over the Brazos,” Jon
McConal; TCU Press, 2005
other online sources
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