content: 2026-07-29 capture run — 14 finds across 10 productive sources

2026-07-29 01:30:02 -04:00
parent 3fdf176b5d
commit 89d8190c12
25 changed files with 265 additions and 5 deletions
@@ -0,0 +1,14 @@
+---
+name: "Pont Mac-Racken"
+subtitle: "A bridge in Mayenne, on the Mayenne, in Mayenne"
+date: 2026-07-29
+shortlist: true
+link: "https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/mac-racken-bridge"
+linkText: "atlasobscura.com"
+source: "Atlas Obscura"
+topics: [travel-and-places, history-and-archives]
+tags: [france, bridge, plaque, ww2]
+description: "A stone bridge in Mayenne, France that changed names four times before settling on the American sergeant who defused the 125 charges set to destroy it."
+---
+
+It crosses the Mayenne river, in the town of Mayenne, in the department of Mayenne — a place that clearly found a name it liked. The bridge itself went through four: Ambroise-de-Loré, then d'Orléans, then Petit Pont, then the Caisse d'Épargne bridge. The one that stuck belongs to Sergeant James Dougal MacRacken, who in August 1944 pulled out the 125 charges left under it and did not come back. The plaque is easy to walk past.