Just to the east of Main Street in Farmington, at about 950 North, a small footbridge spans a gully separating north Farmington farms from Compton Bench.
None of the neighbors can remember when the bridge was built - not even the ones who grew up there - but for decades it was the only link between the two parts of town.
The Bamberger Railroad used to run under the bridge and through the gully, taking people and supplies up and down the county. Joyce Lambson remembers her dad driving across the narrow bridge in their automobile when she was a little girl. Cars were skinnier then, she said, but her dad made her get out and walk across just to be safe.
"It was just the way people got up over the bench," Lambson said.
When James Fulks bought the property to the south of the bridge 30 years ago, it was used by school children to catch the bus on Main Street because the bus could not get up to their homes.
Rebecca Peterson said her family catches the Lagoon fireworks every July from the bridge. For the past five years, Bret Jepson's kids have been practicing their rappelling skills for rock climbing by attaching ropes from their harnesses to the bridge and jumping off.
On Sundays the Jepsons and a handful of other families use it as a shortcut to their chapel. Jepson's daughter crosses it four or five times a week on her scooter to visit a friend who lives on the bench.
Lambson and her husband, Glen, cross it almost as much on their regular walks up the hill for exercise.
While the bridge seems stable now, Fulks is afraid that it may become dangerous. No one knows how old the abutment is, and it is starting to crack and shift, he said.
The 10-foot-wide walkway from Main Street to Compton Road belongs to the city, but Fulks is unsure city officials even know it is there. He wrote to the city and said that if it were his property, he would block the path to eliminate the liability.
"I wouldn't want to be the owner of it," Fulks explained, "but I'm not parking on the mayor's doorstep or anything."
Fulks said the bridge played an important role in Farmington's early days, but that was 50 years ago. It has not been used significantly in the last decade.
"It's not an imminent hazard; it's just one of those old pieces of infrastructure out of use for some time, and it's the job of the city to decide what they want to do with it," Fulks said.
Max Forbush, Farmington's city manager, said engineers have looked at the bridge but have not yet submitted a formal report.
"We're still evaluating options," Forbush said.
Joyce Lambson hopes that the city will not do anything to the historic structure.
"We use it all the time," she said. "It's part of my memories growing up here."
She said she remembers watching boys jump off the bridge onto slow-moving box cars and riding up to 1400 North before climbing off and walking home.
Milo Kirkham, who has lived in the neighborhood since 1959, said he used to ride the Bamberger train from where he grew up, in Woods Cross, to Davis High School. There was a bus, but sometimes a group of friends would opt to ride the train.
He remembers boys pulling pranks, like unhitching the trolley or throwing rocks at the greenhouses that used to be a major industry for Farmington.
Kirkham also remembers when they quit letting automobiles cross, and then horses. The bridge was narrowed and sides were added to make it a walkway. The train quit running and the land was sold off at $1,800 an acre. His neighbors built sheds or kept goats in the gully.
Now, he said, it is just weeds. Kirkham regrets that the state opted not to buy the land and later had to purchase a new corridor to build the UTA's commuter-rail line.
"The state could have made millions," Kirkham mused. "It was a big mistake financially."
