Nearly all of the Michigan Road is (or was at one time) state or US highway and has been improved to modern highway standards. The only notable exception is a 20-mile section that begins about 13 miles north of Madison. It looks like any other Indiana county road. The only concession to modern roadbuilding is that it carries two lanes; the original road was one lane wide.
North of Madison, the Michigan Road becomes US 421, running along the eastern edge of the 56,000-acre Jefferson Proving Ground, a former military installation , most of which today is a national wildlife refuge. Where the JPG’s border veers west, so does the Michigan Road, leaving US 421 behind.
On my Saturday trip along the road, after I turned off US 421 I lifted my camera and shot some video through the windshield.
No matter that this was my second trip along this part of the road and that I knew the bridge was there, seeing the bridge reveal herself as I rounded that curve made me dizzy with pleasure and delight. It went to my head, just as momentarily intoxicating as the scent of lilacs or lavender.
This northbound photo from the bridge shows the fence that marks the Jefferson Proving Grounds boundary and the road inside that follows the site’s perimeter.
I took several photos of the bridge. Click on either of these to see them larger and to access the other photos I took on my Flickr pages.
I know of two other early-1900s stone bridges left along the Michigan Road. A small one is several miles north of here along this segment. Another is on a brief one-lane segment bypassed a long time ago.
