The Municipal Bridge Vision: Difference between revisions

William Branham often told of a vision he had as a young child of 16 men falling to their deaths while building a bridge across the Ohio river.   

:''I was playing marbles out with my little brothers, out in the front yard. And all at once I had a strange feeling come on me. And I stopped and set down aside of a tree. And we were right up on the bank from the Ohio River. And I looked down towards Jeffersonville, and I seen a bridge rise up and go across that, the river, span the river. And I seen sixteen men (I counted them) that dropped off of there and lost their lives on that bridge. I run in real quick and told my mother, and she thought I went to sleep. But they kept it in mind, and twenty-two years from then the Municipal Bridge now (that many of you cross when you cross there) crossed the river at the same place, and sixteen men lost their life building that bridge across the river. It's never failed to be perfectly true.''  (My Life Story, Los Angeles, April 19, 1959)  

Originally called the '''Louisville Municipal Bridge''', the '''George Rogers Clark Memorial Bridge''' is a four-lane cantilever bridge crossing the Ohio River between Louisville, Kentucky and Jeffersonville, Indiana, carrying US 31.  Construction began in June 1928 by the American Bridge Company of Pittsburgh.  It was during this time that William Branham was working as a cowhand in Arizona.  He returned to Jeffersonville after he received news that his brother Edward had passed away on June 20, 1929.  When he returned to Jeffersonville, the new bridge would have been opened or very close to completion. In 1949, the bridge was renamed in honor of George Rogers Clark. The bridge was rehabilitated in 1958, and is still in use today.

We have not been able to find any historic documents or evidence supporting the statement that 16 men died during the construction of the Louisville Municipal Bridge.

We would highly recommend those interested in this issue to read the research performed by [[Searching for Vindication]].

Our research indicates that many deaths occurred during the construction of the Big Four Bridge, which is a railroad bridge a half mile upstream from the Municipal Bridge that opened to the public in 1895.   

In William Branham's vision, 16 people died when they fell off the bridge.  With the Big Four Bridge, 16 people died working in caissons under the bridge while 21 died falling off the bridge.  All of these fatalities occurred before William Branham was born.   

The Louisville Municipal Bridge opened on October 31, 1929.  William Branham said that he had the vision twenty-two years prior to the accident.  This places the vision in 1907, which is before he was born.  However, William Branham also said he had this prophecy when he was either five or six years old (approx. 1914) while playing marbles with his brother.  The only things that happened in 1936, which is twenty-two years from 1914, was that the toll on the Louisvill Municipal Bridge changed from 35 cents to 25 cents and the ''Louisville'', a lifeboat anchored near the Municipal Bridge, was relocated downstream.  As a result, the fulfillment of this prophecy has nothing to do with twenty-two years from the date of the vision.

We understanding that William Branham took Pastor Pearry Green underneath the Municipal bridge, and pointed out the exact section of the bridge that fell into the river.  The problem is not in Pearry Green's retelling of the story - as he did not grow up in Jeffersonville and had no reason to doubt William Branham - the problem lies with William Branham's recollection of the facts and the prophecy. Again, there is no historic indication that any section or portion of the Municipal Bridge fell into the Ohio river.

One would think that William Branham would have been very interested in the municipal bridge because of his vision, but he appears not to have been:

:''That's the way a person that's been redeemed and understands it, you get emotionally. You can't help it when you're... The story was told that he could have--he could live because the perfect lamb died in his place, the little fellow could rejoice, under a... That's the way I felt the day that the story come to my heart. I... Knowing that I was a sinner, I couldn't even find a church that made an altar call. I went from one to the other. No one made an altar call; no one invited. '''They was all talking about flowers, and the new bridge that went across the river. And I--I wasn't interested in that. You read that in newspaper.''' I wanted to hear the Bible, the Word.''  55-1119 REDEEMER.REDEMPTION_ SAN.FERNANDO.CA  

We received the following question on our [http://www.facebook.com/BelieveTheSign discussion page] - "''If what the telling of the bridge is true, that there were not 16 victims, how about the local people living in that time? They must have known about the bridge, and why would Bro. Branham tell such story to the local people? They would know if he had made it up, he would be a bad liar''".

So in 1960, 30 years after the fact, William Branham told the story and no one noticed.  As that was the first time on record that he told it in Jeffersonville, it is really not surprising that no one would have questioned him on it.

If you don't know what [[Cognitive Dissonance|cognitive dissonance]] is, please read our article on the subject.  You might find that you are suffering from it!

One of the results of [[Cognitive Dissonance|cognitive dissonance]] is that dissonance reduction will often cause the sufferer to look for a simple and easy way to ignore the fact that is causing the dissonance.  As a result, quite intelligent people will often settle for answers that are not reasonable, but allow the sufferer to ignore the real issue.

If William Branham was young when he had the vision, perhaps he simply forgot it.  Kids forget a lot of things and get memories messed up.  That would explain why the vision was not fulfilled properly.

3. William Branham said, '''as an adult''', that the vision was fulfilled.  The problem is that he is attesting to something that was not true.  He said that 16 men died on the bridge, but they didn't.

This is the theory floated by [[VoGR]] in an attempt to refute the failure of the municipal bridge vision.  However, that theory was destroyed by the article on the subject on the [[Searching for Vindication]] website.  While it is true that some archives were damaged, complete archived copies of the Jeffersonville newspapers and the Coast Guard log books remain preserved.

Also, does anyone actually believe that the wives, children and parents of the families of 16 men who died would allow their memories to be forgotten?  There isn't the slightest chance that they would.

This excuse basically says that only one small element of the vision was true - that it took place 22 years after he had it.  But this would mean that virtually everything about the vision was false.

Trying to tie the Municipal Bridge Vision to the Ohio Flood is virtually impossible unless you are willing to admit that most of the vision was completely wrong but then, doesn't that still create a problem with Deuteronomy 18:22?

William Branham said he was living in Arizona, not Jeffersonville, when the Municipal Bridge was built.  When he returned to Jeffersonville on the news of his brother's passing in 1929, the new bridge would have been a significant new landmark.  Perhaps he recalled hearing stories of accidents on the Big Four bridge as a child, and confused them with the new bridge that had been built.  However, William Branham repeats that he remembered the vision, and that his mother wrote it down - which means he should have been accurate in retelling the vision.   

If you are interested in further detailed research on this vision, you should go to the [[Searching for Vindication]] website.   

William Branham tells of a vision that he had as a young boy...   

'''If you have any additional facts relating to the subject of this video information, please contact us.'''

The following are all of the quotes where William Branham mentions this vision:

:''Exactly seventeen years from that day, the Municipal Bridge at Jeffersonville spanned over to Kentucky, and the seventh... And the sixteen man lost their life on it, just exactly like it said. Ah, so did Mr. Unbeliever has tempted me all along!

*Allgeier, M.A. (1983). Louisville Municipal Bridge, Pylons, and Administrative Building, Louisville Landmarks Commission.

*The Encyclopedia of Louisville (1 ed.). 2001.