Oil heiress Margaret Hunt Hill died Thursday

by PegNews wire

DALLAS — Margaret Hunt Hill, 91, died late Thursday at her home in Dallas after a brief illness. She was the eldest child of H.L. Hunt Jr., the legendary oilman.

Weirdly, she died the same day that the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) started construction on a bridge named after her: The $69.6 million Woodall Rodgers Extension (Spur 366) -- known as the Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge -- over the Trinity River.

The equipment crane was assembled early this week, drilling equipment arrived Tuesday, the rebar steel arrived on the job site Wednesday, and work was slated to begin on Thursday. The anticipated completion date for this Phase I work which goes from the east levee of the Trinity River to the west levee is Summer 2009. When completed the bridge will be .366 miles long and six-lanes wide.

"When both projects are finished motorists will have an alternate one-mile long, east-west route, from downtown," said Enrique Guillen, TxDOT’s Central Dallas Area Office Project Engineer. "Having the Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge connect Spur 366 to a reconstructed Beckley Avenue and Singleton Boulevard intersection is going to help a lot of motorists."

Posted by T.G.