Tonya Brantley was working at the History Branch of the Cleveland Bradley County Public Library one evening when a man called seeking information on the historic Dobbs Ford Bridge. He was trying to determine if the bridge is named after one of his kin.

“Bob and Kay Dobbs were searching for their ancestor, their great-grandfather, and were trying to find his gravesite,” Brantley said.

They heard of the bridge and wanted to see if their was any connection.

“I told them if anybody knows anything about bridges, it’s Calvin Sneed, so I contacted him and we are eventually going to find this out,” she continued.

As she was talking to Sneed, a freelance anchor for Local 3 News in Chattanooga, she asked if he had ever received recognition for his work at preserving the history of bridges in the local area, and around the region and country. “He said no, and I said I will work on that,” Brantley said.

Being involved with the Ocoee Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution, it was only natural that she would approach this group, and DAR would find a way to honor Sneed for his diligent work.

DAR presented Sneed with a special plaque of recognition on Thursday. The event was held at the Museum & Cultural Center at 5ive Points, and among those at the ceremony were the Dobbses.

“[Sneed] has captured 900 bridges and has traveled across the United States to photograph the endangered structures,” DAR’s Betsy Bassette said at the ceremony, “but the one we want to call attention to today is the Dobbs Ford Bridge, and we have some family members here with a vested interest.”

In fact, the Dobbses, from Georgia, stayed following the ceremony and visited the bridge. They already had been taken by Brantley to a remote cemetery off Lower River Road in northern Bradley County, where members of the Dobbs family were buried.

The Dobbs Ford Bridge is the state’s oldest metal truss bridge built for auto traffic, and is one of only two bridges believed to have been built by the Wrought Iron Bridge Company.

The bridge was originally on Old Harrison Pike, according to Sneed, and then moved to the Rolling Hill Golf Course, where it stayed until 1990, when it was dismantled, according to Library of Congress records. It was stored in an area and just recently was reassembled to become a part of the Cleveland/Bradley Greenway extension near Cleveland Middle School.

“The fact that it was built in 1878, when you stop and think about that, they don’t make things like that anymore,” Sneed said. “And we’ve got a whole generation of kids coming up that take a look at that and they have no idea how close they are to history.”

Sneed said Cameron Fisher on the Greenway board of directors asked him about the history of the bridge, “and I told him that is predates bridges in Nashville, Knoxville, Chattanooga. It is one of the oldest in the region, not just Tennessee. I have researched Georgia and North Carolina and Kentucky, and I would dare say it’s right up there.”

Sneed continued his history of the Dobbs Ford Bridge following the ceremony during a visit with Kiwanis Club of Cleveland members.

“The fully restored bridge is now a part of a 5-mile continuous Greenway loop from Fletcher Park to the old Rolling Hills Golf Course site,” Sneed said, and added that he had just heard some welcome news about the bridge.

“I’m pleased to tell you some new news just hot off the presses that the Cleveland city manager [Joe Fivas] now says the construction of the Candies Creek Greenway will begin next month,” Sneed said.

He said the front half of the pathway will be concrete, and the last half would be asphalt.

Sneed revealed to the Kiwanis Club many other informative stories about bridges in Tennessee and nearby states.

“I love giving speeches to groups like this, especially high school kids who are really impressionable about this kind of architecture,” he noted. “If you dig down into your own individual paths, everybody has grown up with around a bridge.”

Sneed said bridges to him are like people ⏤ and they deserve the same respect.

“Bridges have had almost like a supernatural hold on our imaginations,” he said. “They make great photo subjects, but not those ugly concrete things. That’s boring to me. They are monuments to mediocrity. All they do is get you from one side of the creek to the other.”

Sneed said he has visited more than 1,000 bridges and has taken more than 33,000 different photos.

“I hope to change your minds about how you look at bridges,” he told Kiwanis members. “I want you to see them in a different light, in a different angle every single time you notice them. I want you to see them not as pieces of steel bolted together, but as works of art. Those steel beams [with] leaning curved arches stretching to the heavens and then dropping back down.”

Much like he wants others to look at the Dobbs Ford Bridge.

“This bridge is not just Cleveland and Bradley County history. It’s history that you now share with the state of Tennessee. And it’s something to be proud of. And something to brag about.”

Sneed said that while he cannot save every bridge, he can try to preserve them in pictures.

He hopes that he can help Brantley identify the origin of the Dobbs Ford Bridge, and if the Dobbs family from Georgia is related to the bridge’s namesakes.

The DAR Ocoee Chapter also presented two other awards at Thursday’s ceremony.

The DAR Excellence in Historic Preservation was awarded to Judy Brock, who has been a member of DAR since 2012 and is currently serving at chapter librarian.

Brock has taken on the project of digitizing chapter records, which include multiple boxes of yearbooks, scrapbooks, programs, booklets and treasury reports. The chapter was organized in 1910, so she is scanning more than 112 years of history.

Unfortunately, Brock was unable to attend the ceremony.

Margot Neil Everhart also was recognized by the Ocoee Chapter for her stewardship of the Hair Conrad Cabin, which was purchased by Everhart’s grandfather in 1930. The cabin was built in the 1800s, and still stands on its original foundation.

Hair Conrad was a prominent Cherokee in the area and led the first removal group under Chief John Ross. The log cabin is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

An original buggy from the cabin is on display now at the Museum & Cultural Center at 5ive Points.