Just past the Beaudesert racecourse, stood the old Ilbogan Bridge.
The timber bridge built after the devastating flood in the 1950’s took out the previous river crossing.
The Boonah Beaudesert Road, at the time being a quiet link between the two towns and still mostly gravel.
The new Ilbogan bridge towering over the Logan River some forty feet below, was state of the art at the time.
With the river far below, it would hardly have been thought there would be a flood high enough to affect the crossing, but the waterway had other ideas.
A number of weather events pushed the river level over the top of the bridge, but the old timber structure stood its ground, and survived them all in its time, the rails however being washed away by debris flowing with the torrent.
Several road accidents occurred on the bridge or its approaches, as it was not wide enough for many to dare cross, when a truck came the other way.
When the Abattoir was built at Bromelton in the early 1950’s, herds of cattle arrived in Beaudesert by train and were walked via road to the meatworks.
This of course required crossing the bridge.
The herds often balked at crossing this enormous thing that was completely foreign to them, causing much angst for the stockmen and traffic that built up behind them.
The bridge undertook major upgrades in its lifetime, some better than others.
Nearing the of its life the old dear would shake and rattle loudly enough to wake nearby residents, leading a local stock truck owner in renaming it “the ill and broken bridge”.
All good things come to an end, with the bridge finally being replaced by a new, higher concrete structure, leaving only memories of the “ill and broken bridge”.
