Progress has slowed greatly for the Bagdad Mill Site Park since the floods of this year, according to Tom Collins with the Santa Rosa County Road and Bridge department, but he said the majority of the reinforced concrete at the site has been unearthed. According to Sheila Harris, grant writer with the county, the construction company Anderson Columbia had a building there. Collins said, when the county discovered the monolithic slab of reinforced concrete beneath the earth, workers first set about breaking it up into manageable chunks, then bringing those to the surface. From there, he said, they separated the rebar from the concrete. The stages of this process are all visible still: piles of unearthed reinforced concrete, a knot of rebar, a hill of pulverized concrete, and fill dirt. Flood recovery, Collins said, took obvious precedence over the park and work will continue as grants arrive. According to Harris, currently funded elements of the park include 5 picnic tables with grills, a handicapped accessible fishing pier, a 10’ wide asphalt multi-purpose trail, a trail boardwalk, wayside exhibits with historical signage, a kayak launch and parking area, 6 benches, landscaping and irrigation, and utilities.
This article originally appeared on Santa Rosa Press Gazette: Bagdad Historic Mill Site on hold for now