Babylon Bend Bridge
Photos
Oblique overview
View facing southeast, from the yard of the adjacent landowner. I would advise NOT entering the yard unless the landowner has secured the dogs.
Photo taken by Fmiser
License: Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike (CC BY-SA)
BH Photo #286258
Facts
- Overview
- Through truss bridge over Spoon River on Babylon Road (TR 123)
- Location
- Fulton County, Illinois
- Status
- Closed to all traffic since about 2007
- History
- Built 1890. One of the nine bridges submitted to NRHP in "Metal Highway Bridges of Fulton County Thematic Resources", 1980-10-29
- Design
- Pin-connected Pratt through truss
- Dimensions
-
Length of largest span: 200.0 ft.
Total length: 204.0 ft.
Deck width: 15.7 ft.
Vertical clearance above deck: 18.0 ft.
- Recognition
- Posted to the National Register of Historic Places on October 29, 1980
- Approximate latitude, longitude
- +40.59035, -90.34787 (decimal degrees)
40°35'25" N, 90°20'52" W (degrees°minutes'seconds") - Approximate UTM coordinates
- 15/724436/4496665 (zone/easting/northing)
- Quadrangle map:
- Blyton
- Land survey
- T. 7 N., R. 1 E., Sec. 13
- Average daily traffic (as of 2005)
- 10
- Inventory numbers
- IL 029-3078 (Illinois bridge number)
NRHP 80001355 (National Register of Historic Places reference number)
BH 15244 (Bridgehunter.com ID) - Inspection report (as of November 2011)
- Overall condition: Poor
Superstructure condition rating: Critical (2 out of 9)
Substructure condition rating: Fair (5 out of 9)
Deck condition rating: Satisfactory (6 out of 9)
Sufficiency rating: 25.2 (out of 100)
View more at BridgeReports.com
Update Log
- June 23, 2014: Updated by Fmiser: corrected map pin location
- February 28, 2014: New photos from Elliott Johnson
- July 13, 2012: Updated by Fmiser: Added titles and captions to photos.
- July 10, 2012: New photos from Fmiser
- July 8, 2012: Updated by Fmiser: added to history
- July 2, 2012: New photo from Fmiser
- October 18, 2011: Updated by J.P.: added builder
- December 6, 2008: New photos from James Baughn
- July 8, 2008: New photos from Kim Harvey
Sources
- Kim Harvey
- J.P. - wildcatjon2000 [at] gmail [dot] com
- Wikipedia
- Fmiser - fmiser [at] gmail [dot] com
- Elliott Johnson - elliottsgon15 [at] hotmail [dot] com
Comments
I talked to a local resident. He says the bridge was built in 1899. How trustworthy is the "official" 1890 date?
He also said the approx. 3 feet of concrete on the top of the stone abutments was added about 1950 to raise the bridge.
And, during the flooding in 2014, he was on the bridge with a chainsaw to clear driftwood from the superstructure. I suspect it was that sort of driftwood that toppled the Tartar Ferry Road bridge...
Yup. The HAER photos are of the Indian Ford bridge. I just visited the site. I uploaded one photos so there would be something to see after James removes the incorrect photos. I have a bunch more I hope to upload soon.
The picture shown is not the Babylon bridge,we live next to it. To see a picture go to our web site at www.bridgeviewolives.com
This page's URL is http://bridgehunter.com/il/fulton/babylon/
According to the National Register Nomination Form the 1890 date for this bridge was a "circa" date. So the 1899 date could absolutely be correct. See attached.
Attachment #1 (application/pdf; 484,860 bytes)