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In
1965 I was on a bridge-widening job in Hye
and another bridge job nearby at Johnson
City. The bridge contractor was Shandell Construction of Dallas
and I was working for Contractors Foundation Drilling of Fort
Worth.
Each abutment got one pier on each side of the bridge and each interior
bent got one pier. The wing walls also got a 18" pier under them.
Some of the holes drilled ok, but some of them had small caves. The
rock was hard so I had to put a lot of down pressure on the auger,
but when I broke through the rock, the machine would drop, and scare
the hell out of me. But that was ok. When it was quitting time we
all went to Kline's bar in Stonewall and had a few, some times a few
too many.
One day my helper would not go in the hole to see what we had to do,
so I let the boss lower me down in the hole. The hole was taking on
water and I was about 20 feet down, when the rig ran out of gas. By
the time they got the rig refueled and got me out the water was almost
up to my neck. That night was one when I had a few too many. |
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Contractor's
Foundation
Drilling Rig with Auger
(Fort Worth) |
| Texas
Escapes, in its purpose to preserve historic, endangered and vanishing
Texas, asks that anyone wishing to share their local history, stories,
landmarks and vintage or recent photos, please contact
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