Photos
 |
Overview Photos provided by the Arkansas Highway & Transportation Department |
 |
Portal |
 |
Deck view |
 |
Oblique view |
 |
Standing on bridge |
 |
Lower chord joint |
Facts
- Overview
- Two-span through truss bridge over West Fork White River on CR 35
- Location
- Washington County, Arkansas
- Status
- Open to traffic with 3 Ton weight limit
- History
- Built 1925
- Design
- Two pin-connected, 8-panel Parker through trusses
- Dimensions
-
Length of largest span: 150.0 ft.
Total length: 303.0 ft.
Deck width: 15.7 ft.
Vertical clearance above deck: 13.4 ft.
- Recognition
- Posted to the National Register of Historic Places
- Approximate latitude, longitude
- +35.88556, -94.16944 (decimal degrees)
35°53'08" N, 94°10'10" W (degrees°minutes'seconds") - Approximate UTM coordinates
- 15/394446/3971886 (zone/easting/northing)
- USGS topographic map
- West Fork
- Inventory numbers
- AHTD 17320 (Arkansas Highway and Transportation Dept. bridge number)
NRHP 00000637 (National Register of Historic Places reference number)
BH 10665 (Bridgehunter.com ID) - Inspection (as of 09/2007)
- Deck condition rating: Fair (5 out of 9)
Superstructure condition rating: Serious (3 out of 9)
Substructure condition rating: Poor (4 out of 9)
Appraisal: Structurally deficient
Sufficiency rating: 13.8 (out of 100) - Average daily traffic (as of 1987)
- 258
Comments
Visited the Woolsey Bridge on 21Jan'09. I'm attaching a photo that depicts the installation of precautionary devices to limit access from tall(8'max)/wide/heavy vehicles. I was on the gravel bar underneath the bridge when several cars crossed and it handled them easily. It's obvious that some "fishplate" repairs have been done in the area of the connecting pins. Rivets were replaced with bolts.
The Woolsey bridge has reopened with a 3 ton weight limit.
I was there last weekend (9-15-07) and in places, it looks as if the deck *may* be beginning to fall apart underneath. The only thing I noted at street level was a slight gap between the end of the birdge and the roadway. I walked across the bridge a couple times and it felt solid.
While I am no engineer, yesterday I was at the Woolsey bridge, and there is no visible metal deterioration above the deck whatsoever. If there is deterioration in the metal structure, then it must be in the floor beams and stringers, but where the floor beams meet the verticles at the pin-connections they look fine to me. I wish I had looked underneath. Sighting down the bridge, the bridge is level and the deck is nice and level, no evidence of shifting at all. Walking across, the deck is smooth and in pretty good shape. The newspaper article linked in previous post states that it will cost between 1.2 million to 1.7 million dollars to repair or replace the bridge. I really fail to see why it would cost that much, even if the floor beams and stringers would have to be replaced and a new deck poured (the deck is concrete). This is a very historic bridge, one of the few remaining multi-span thru-trusses left in the state. Everything possible should be done to preserve it. It is on a minor road, light traffic.
http://nwanews.com/nwat/News/57082/
All that's being said right now is "closed indefinitely".
Latest notice is that this bridge is closed. Permanent or temporary, who knows?