2 Lafayette Park 
Saturday, 9:00 am – 1:00 pm
The Bridge Tender’s House, a bed and breakfast in historic Lafayette Park, stands next to the cornerstone of a swing-span bridge that once crossed the Alabama River. One of its distinguishing features is the attention given to decorative detail in such a small structure. The tiny front porch is embellished with a scroll-cut wooden banister and gingerbread trim, including a delightful fringe of open-work scalloping in the gable above.
Built by the Selma Bridge Company in the 1880s, the cottage perches on the river bank where it housed the bridge tender. His 24-7 job included opening and closing the span to river traffic and collecting tolls. The bridge was the first reliable transportation across the river, and the river was the only transportation route for agricultural products sent out of the area between Montgomery and Meridian.
In 1899, Dallas County bought the house and bridge. Tolls were discontinued, and the bridge tender became a county employee. By 1939, a more modern bridge was needed, and after the Edmund Pettus Bridge was dedicated in 1940, the county destroyed the old span bridge. The cornerstone can still be seen from the cottage’s downstairs porch, and until it was purchased by George and Kathi Needham in 1999, it was owned by a series of public agencies.
By the early 1990s, the Selma-Dallas County Historic Preservation Society realized the house was unstable and wanted to preserve its unique significance. They invested in its stabilization, which included sinking steel pipes down to the bedrock and steel girders underneath it.
The Needhams have decorated the house with comfortable furnishings, Selma art and a large wooden wheel that is the pattern
that was used to manufacture the gears that turned the bridge’s swing span. The gears were made at the Selma Foundry, located a few blocks away near the old Depot Museum.
While the original house had an outhouse where the St. James Hotel terrace is located today, the owners added modern bathrooms for both the top and bottom apartments.
While it might appear that the Bridge Tender’s House sits precariously close to the river and might flood, the house has never flooded. When the river rises, any overflow affects the lower elevations of East Selma and Selmont. Selma’s founders laid the town out on a bluff for a reason!
