Rating:
2 votes

Bonnie Doon Crossing

Lyon County, Iowa

Photos 

Grant Avenue Bridge

Overview

Photo taken by John Marvig in December 2014

Enlarge

BH Photo #312144

Map 

Facts 

Overview
Abandoned pratt through truss bridge over Rock River on Grant Avenue
Location
Lakewood Corner, Lyon County, Iowa
Status
Abandoned
Builder
- Iowa State Highway Commission of Ames, Iowa
Design
2-span Pratt through truss bridge with trestle approaches, A-frame portal bracings and riveted connections
Approximate latitude, longitude
+43.33255, -96.19629   (decimal degrees)
43°19'57" N, 96°11'47" W   (degrees°minutes'seconds")
Approximate UTM coordinates
14/727294/4801563 (zone/easting/northing)
Quadrangle map:
Doon
Inventory number
BH 51959 (Bridgehunter.com ID)

Categories 

A-frame portal (408)
Abandoned (3,241)
Beam (13,555)
Iowa (6,096)
Iowa State Highway Commission (761)
Lakewood Corner, Iowa (1)
Lyon County, Iowa (47)
Owned by county (19,443)
 Pratt through truss (4,794)
Pratt truss (8,355)
Riveted (1,992)
Rock River (Minnesota-Iowa) (22)
Through truss (13,566)
Truss (30,510)
US 75 (43)
Wooden deck (5,963)

Update Log 

  • August 15, 2016: Updated by Jason Smith: Updated the bridge's information
  • January 3, 2015: New photos from John Marvig
  • December 30, 2014: Updated by Luke: Removed railroad details due to a field check from John.
  • October 26, 2012: Updated by Luke Harden: Added category "Chicago, St. Paul, Minneapolis & Omaha Railway"
  • October 26, 2012: Updated by Jason Smith: Added categories "Rock River (Minnesota-Iowa)", "Bonnie Doon Railroad"
  • April 5, 2012: Added by Jason Smith

Sources 

  • Jason Smith - flensburg [dot] bridgehunter [dot] av [at] googlemail [dot] com
  • John Marvig - marvigj27 [at] gmail [dot] com
  • Luke
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Comments 

Bonnie Doon Crossing
Posted March 11, 2018, by Jeff DeYong (edna [dot] iowa [at] yahoo,com)

This bridge was a road bridge on the original hiway 75 or KT trail from Rock Rapids to Doon. However it was never a railroad bridge for the Bonnie Doon railroad as speculated in the article, Old plat maps clearly show the railroad and roadway running parallel until several hundred yards South of this bridge. The road continues North over this bridge and past the historic Lakewood farm. The railroad however splits and continues along the South/East side of the river to the town of Lakewood which was 2 miles East of the famous farm. The farm had it's own small redwood style watertower which resembled a tower for a steam locomotive which probably confuses things. But the train clearly didn't cross this bridge and went to the now long gone town instead. 1930's aerial pics also show this. Carefully read the article about riding the Bonnie Doon and it too agrees with the train going to Lakewood and then crossing the river a mile North of the town - 3 or 4 miles from this bridge site.

Attachment #1 (application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document; 127,866 bytes)

Rock River Bridge
Posted August 15, 2016, by Jason Smith (flensburg [dot] bridgehunter [dot] av [at] googlemail [dot] com)

Mystery Bridge except for the fact that the bridge did exist along the former Bonnie Doon line: http://thebridgehunter.areavoices.com/2016/08/15/mystery-bri...

Bonnie Doon - Rock River Bridge
Posted May 1, 2014, by Alan Dean (alandijk [at] hotrmail [dot] com)

The north approach of the bridge collapsed in 1968. The bridge was closed to traffic but the farmers still use ituntil the 1980's.

Bonnie Doon RR Bridge at Lakewood Corner
Posted May 8, 2012, by John Marvig (johnmarvig [at] chaska [dot] net)

Bridge in the 1930's

http://ortho.gis.iastate.edu/client_pls.cgi?zoom=1&x0=240895...

Bridge in the 1960's

http://ortho.gis.iastate.edu/client_pls.cgi?action=south&zoo...

Bridge in the 1980's

http://ortho.gis.iastate.edu/client_pls.cgi?zoom=1&x0=240941...

conclusion: Bridge was converted to a road bridge at some point, served as a road until the collapse between 1980 and 1994....