Retreaves His Penny From 43 Years Ago

George Dawson placed a penny in the wet concrete of the Browns Bridge back in 1965 when he was helping to build the crossing. In January, when Dawson learned that the bridge would soon be replaced, he returned to retrieve what he had left behind.

Construction crews were at the bridge taking core samples when Dawson showed up to reclaim his penny.

“The flag man looked at me funny,” he said. “But I said, ‘I left a penny here 43 years ago. I just came back to get it.’”

In the summer of 1965, Dawson was a 20-year-old student who was working construction to pay for his schooling at what was then Southern Oregon College. Dawson was a laborer for Stach Construction Co. in Grants Pass. That summer he had been working in White City, but was transferred to Roseburg when his father became ill.

The day Dawson and the rest of the crew poured concrete for the bridge, Dawson pulled a shiny new penny from his pocket and stuck it in the wet concrete. He expected the next crew, who would smooth and finish the concrete, to remove it. But, to his surprise, they worked around the penny.

“It was a whimsical thing to do at the time,” he said. “... I stuck it in as a joke.”

Dawson left his penny in the bridge and from time to time, when he was in town, would go back to check if it was still in its place. Dawson moved back to Riddle, which is where he grew up, in 1970. Over the years, he didn’t tell many people about the penny, but did take his kids and a few close friends out to see it.

When Dawson, 63, decided to retrieve his penny he found it sitting loosely in the concrete and easily plucked it out. The penny was a bit grimy and had a few scrapes across the top, but was otherwise intact.

“The weather finally loosened it up,” Dawson said, “along with the rest of the bridge.”

A new bridge will replace the aging Browns Bridge by 2011, said Kerry Werner, bridge engineer for the Douglas County Public Works Department. Crews have started working on a temporary crossing — using some metal already on hand and purchasing the rest — until funding can be obtained for a permanent replacement. The temporary bridge should be completed in October or November of this year, he said.

Construction for the permanent replacement will begin in the summer of 2009 and should take two years to complete, Werner said.

To ensure that his memories didn’t go down with the bridge, Dawson took the dingy penny and framed it with a photo of the aging bridge. That way, even when the bridge is torn down, Dawson will still have a memento of the old crossing and the summer of ’65.


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