Salt Creek Bridge

Found this shot of the plaque on Flickr:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/spansaver/5717115156/in/photostream

Regards,

Art S.

Someone on Google+ just told me the fate of this bridge, and sadly it was not the weather or metal thieves. It was the County who removed the bridge.

Never have been able to get the specifics of what happened to this rare bridge...very disappointing.

Its extremely disappointing that this bridge is gone, but just wanted to share this photo that I edited.

Gone, Gone, Gone. I canoed past this bridge today (12-26-11) and she is definitely gone. This was the old alignment of the S.R. 158 located aprox. 500 feet downstream from the present UCEB S.R. 158 Bridge. Salt Creek in this location is very deep and about (100 ft.) as wide as the old bridge used to be. Sad to see it go and now the only Salt Creek bridges of any importance are the Old S.R.37 three-arch concrete and the Old S.R. 450 1 span iron bridge located on private property.

Metal thieves would have left the wood decking.

Tornado knocks it off foundations into river and metal thieves scavenge twisted remains is my guess.

My guess is tornado back in may, but I may be stronger, could be metal thieves strike again.

I was bridge hunting in Lawrence County today and this bridge unfortunately is no longer there. The abutments remain, and on the southern bank a pile of stone rubble. I can't find any local news stories about demolition or it being destroyed by nature, and it is still listed in the SHAARD database. But its definitely gone. I really would have loved to see it.

If anyone happens to be in that area someone should do a field check

I can not find anything on it via google, But I did find that there was a strong tornado there back in May. So a possibility it destroyed by that.

Mr. Davis is correct. This bridge is gone; all that remained was a pile of timber planks from the old deck. There is no sign of any of the truss and the stone seats were badly ripped up.

I wonder if he is confusing this with the Peerless Road Bridge that was over Salt Creek and was removed in 2000.

http://bridgehunter.com/in/lawrence/4700058/

Like you said Nathan it was def still there last year...and he said he hadn't been there in a very long time.

Are you sure? I was at the bridge in May 10, 2010 and it was still there. It is buried in the trees and easy to miss. This bridge borders on national significance and it would be very unusual for this bridge to be demolished in Indiana, however if they did this would be an unforgivable sin against humanity.

I'm sad to report that this bridge is now gone. Not sure when it was removed, as I haven't been down there in quite a long time.

Nice to finally get a documented construction date for this bridge.

The more I look at this bridge the older I think it is. The whole structure, especially the verticals, are very light. It looks nothing like any other Smith bridges from the 1880's. I would not be surprised if this span is from the 1870's.

The date given for this bridge is incorrect. The Smith Bridge Company was sold and became the Toledo Bridge Company around 1890. This bridge almost surely dates to the late 1880's. I've not seen a plaque like this one on any other bridge.