Wallace Bridge Repair Progressing - Slowly

The June 24 edition of the Petit Jean Country Headlight (Perryville, Arkansas) reports that the historic Wallace Bridge, damaged when an overloaded truck broke through the deck last January, has been approved for repairs.

Perry County Judge Baylor House reports that he has released the go-ahead for repairs to structural engineers. He further says that he had hoped for grant assistance from the Arkansas Historical Preservation Program but such aid is not forthcoming at this time.

The bridge is located in Perry County, Arkansas and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Last January, the driver of a lumber truck that weighed 6 times the posted load limit attempted to cross the rare camelback through truss and promptly broke through the deck.

See the original story here and read the lively discussion that followed.

Sam Sawyer visited the Wallace Bridge on February 7, after the
truck was removed, and took this dramatic photo of the
damage. You can see this photo and his other photos of the
damage in the original news story thread.

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Missouri's Historic Bridge Inventory available online

Imagine my surprise when I accidentally stumbled across this page on the MoDOT website with the scanned text of Missouri's long-rumored but rarely-seen Historic Bridge Inventory. Posted as a series of PDF files, it's cumbersome to browse, but includes quite a bit of research I haven't seen before.

As with any state's historic bridge inventory, these documents quickly become outdated as bridges are replaced or destroyed. In addition, bridges that were previously ignored have gained historic significance as time passes. Indeed, even MoDOT describes the original 1991-96 inventory as being "in need of a profound update and overhaul." They have posted an updated spreadsheet from July 2008 showing a depressing number of bridges that have been replaced.

Since this inventory was derived from highway department records, it omits many abandoned bridges as well as footbridges, railroad bridges, culverts, and private spans. Some of Missouri's most interesting bridges fall into these categories, including the Irondale Arch Bridge (1856, so far the oldest bridge I've identified), Benton Park Bridge (1866 brick arch), Victorian Footbridge (1885 oddball design), Frumet Bridge (long abandoned Camelback truss), and the Bois Brule Creek Bridge (which as one person recently commented, is in better shape than its replacement).

Despite the limitations of Missouri's inventory, it's still a fantastic source of information. I'm in the process of incorporating all of the new data as time permits.

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On this date in history...

...in 1937, the Golden Gate Bridge opened, one of the most recognizable structures in the world. On this date, the bridge was open to pedestrians only, allowing residents an opportunity to closely inspect the bridge. (It opened to traffic the next day, May 28.) The Golden Gate Bridge was a marvel of technology and achievement when it opened, after only 5 years of construction. Dreamers had proposed bridging San Francisco Bay and the Golden Gate Strait as far back as the 1870s when the completed transcontinental railroad brought passengers to Oakland, but not to San Francisco, and the city found itself on the wrong side of the bay.

The challenges of spanning the Golden Gate Strait were many. The Golden Gate is a narrow strait that is the mouth of San Francisco Bay. It is over 350 feet deep and 390 billion gallons of salt water flow through the strait, four times every day, as the tides flow in and out of San Francisco Bay. In addition, high winds swirl through the strait on a nearly continuous basis. All talk was just that, talk, until 1916 when an engineer proposed a 3,000 foot span, estimated to cost $100 million to build.

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The bad news continues

Update May 6: The implosion of the Davis Avenue Bridge happened today.

Previous update from April 22: This might be a first: Pittsburgh officials have evacuated the residents of four houses near the Davis Avenue Bridge, fearing that the bridge could collapse at any time. The city intends to demolish the bridge as soon as possible.

Of course, it's absolutely appalling that the bridge has been allowed to deteriorate to this point. City leaders have been making excuses ever since the bridge was closed to traffic in 2001. The National Bridge Inventory indicates that the bridge's superstructure was rated as 1 out of 9 ("imminent failure") since at least 2005.

In other bad news, the main span of the Pomeroy-Mason Bridge between Ohio and West Virginia was imploded yesterday. This was another in a long line of cantilever trusses that have been replaced by cookie-cutter cable-stayed bridges.

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A glimmer of hope in Pennsylvania?

I've never understood Pennsylvania's love-affair with Ugly Concrete Eyesore Bridges (UCEBs). They'll demolish a historic bridge on a road with very little traffic while spending megabucks to build a fancy replacement bridge that is overkill.

Is Pennsylvania starting to get a clue? I wouldn't hold my breath, but the situation isn't completely hopeless. A recent Parade Magazine article, How We Can Save Our Roads, quotes Allen D. Biehler, the Pennsylvania state transportation secretary:

Biehler department now is rethinking its practice of replacing worn-out country bridges with large concrete decks -- which tend to be about 20 feet wider than the bridges. "You don't need an extra 18 or 20 feet," says Biehler. "What are you really getting for that additional spending? Multiplied by hundreds of bridges, that adds up to a lot of money.

Amen to that. There's no reason to build massive UCEBs on minor backroads.

If Pennsylvania is willing to consider building smaller bridges, then perhaps they'll start to question the whole idea of building replacement bridges in the first place. In many cases historic bridges can be rehabilitated to provide more than adequate service for light traffic. Not every bridge needs to be built with piers tall enough to withstand a 5,000-year flood and decks wide enough to carry the Space Shuttle.

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Who owns this bridge?

What happens when nobody can agree who owns a bridge? That's the situation at Higbee, Missouri, following the collapse of a wooden bridge across the KCS Railroad. A passing train carrying metal pipes reportedly caused the bridge to collapse after the load shifted. Nobody wants to take responsibility for reconstructing the bridge, so the wreckage has remained for the last year:

The railroad insists that the bridge is owned by the county since it carries Randolph County Road 2561, a convenient shortcut around Higbee. Somehow the railroad officials seem to think that the county is responsible for repairing damage that the railroad caused. Meanwhile, the county argues that the railroad owns the bridge and that the railroad is fully responsible for fixing it.

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Historic Wallace Bridge to be Repaired

The February 18, 2009 edition of the Petit Jean Country Headlight reported that plans to restore the Wallace Bridge are underway. The paper says that Perry County Judge Baylor House issued an update on pending repairs to the historic structure, after a delivery truck broke through the deck last month. Judge House said that preservation specialists and two engineers (one of them is a structural engineer) are reviewing renderings and drawings of the bridge in preparation of creating a plan for the repair. Judge House indicated that repairs could be completed as early as July.

See Truck Falls Through Wallace Bridge for the original Bridge Hunter story and discussion.

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Tuscumbia Bridge doomed

The Tuscumbia Bridge in Miller County, Missouri, has the dubious honor of being the first construction project funded by the Stimulus Bill signed by President Obama.

The old bridge, a rare cantilevered through truss, will be replaced by some hideous UCEB (Ugly Concrete Eyesore Bridge). To add insult to injury, the project will likely obliterate the remaining artifacts of the Tuscumbia Swinging Bridge, one of the longest suspension bridges ever built in Missouri.

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The Bridges of Bollinger County, Missouri

I gave a presentation on Sunday, Feb. 8, to the Bollinger County Historical Society about the truss bridges in the county. Here's a summary of the presentation.

Update Feb. 17: I'm giving another presentation this Monday, Feb. 23, at 6 PM to the Stoddard County Historical Society at the Stars & Stripes Museum in Bloomfield, Missouri.

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Truck Falls Through Wallace Bridge

A delivery truck owned by Haynes Home Center, Morrilton, made a wrong turn while making a delivery in Perry County early Thursday morning. The driver drove the delivery truck onto and into the historic Wallace Bridge that spans the Fourche LaFave River, five miles below the Nimrod Dam.

The truck was loaded with lumber for a job site on the Wallace Bridge Road, west of Aplin. The direct route to the job site, approximately two miles south of Highway 60, would have taken the driver across the Wallace Bridge. To avoid the bridge, directions were given routing the trucks south on Highway 155 then to a county road on the south side of the river.

Approaching the job site, which was directly in front of the truck, the driver made a right turn which took him onto the bridge.

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