Quitman County Seeks Bids for New Hood Road Bridge Replacement

The window for contractors is closing. Sealed bids for a new Hood Road bridge are due at 10:00 a.m. on April 16 at the Quitman County Courthouse in Marks, where the Quitman County Board of Supervisors will open them publicly.

The project, funded through Mississippi's State Aid Bridge Program as SABP Project No. SABP-60(01), is a full replacement of the bridge and its approaches where Hood Road crosses the Quitman-Panola ditch near Marks Cutoff. The 0.113-mile scope is modest in length but substantial in engineering: specifications call for 720 linear feet of 14-inch steel piling, approximately 53 cubic yards of Class A bridge concrete, and 735 cubic yards of unclassified excavation. That combination of deep piling and structural concrete signals a bridge built to address the soft, unstable subgrade that routinely undermines aging Delta-era spans, not a patch to buy a few more seasons.

Willis Engineering is listed as the engineering contact on the plan-room posting. Prospective bidders must obtain documents through the plan-room system, confirm plan-holder status, and meet bonding and licensing requirements before the April 16 deadline.

The timing carries direct consequences for Hood Road users. Spring brings some of the heaviest equipment loads of the year through Quitman County's rural corridors, and a structurally constrained crossing means farm machinery, school buses, and emergency vehicles face either weight-posted restrictions or longer alternate routes. A properly engineered replacement eliminates that calculation.

The project's financial structure also matters in a county with Quitman's tax base. State Aid Bridge Program funding absorbs a significant share of construction cost, which means local taxpayers are not carrying the full bill to replace infrastructure that handles daily school bus runs and agricultural hauls. For a low-population Delta county, that cost-sharing arrangement is the primary path to modernizing rural crossings that would otherwise sit on a deferred-maintenance list indefinitely.

The specifications also include 75 linear feet of W-beam guardrail and approximately 1,200 linear feet of temporary silt fence, covering both traffic safety and the environmental controls required for work near the Quitman-Panola ditch. If a contract is awarded following the April 16 opening, construction could begin before summer, ahead of peak agricultural traffic on Hood Road.