Mill's Romance Show Unwittingly Features Tie to SRC

You might know that The Mill has a Valentine's theme, "Romance," for their annual collaborative show with displays from area historic and cultural institutions.

You might not know that one of their featured images has ties to our current SRC debate!

Hedda Swart at his Wedding
from the Mill's "Romance" Exhibit
(WHC 0063.001.0062.001.007)

Here's Hedda Swart as a young man.

Apparently a Third Bridge
was his idea!
(from a January, 2017 SJ piece)

And here's Heda Swart a couple of years before he died (the photo's from 1952).

It's got to be the same person, right?!

And our current best information suggests he was the original source of talk about a third bridge.

Marion Street Bridge Planning, 1946-50
Concept as built

And he hadn't even waited for the second one to be finished! The Marion Street Bridge opened in 1954. So right when the Marion Street Bridge was being constructed, Swart was already talking about adding another bridge. That's an interesting comment about the depths of mid-century autoism.

Notes with his grave suggest he grew up on Front Street in a house between D and Division Streets. So he would have had a front seat to cross-river traffic and successive waves of development and then redevelopment on the river.

There are no great lessons here, just minor comedy and amusing historic footnotes, I think.