Well, that is a shame. I would think that in 2008, an 1870 Bowstring truss would not be demolished. Is there a possibility that the bridge was disassembled but placed in storage?
In December of 2013, I traveled to the site in hopes of finding this bridge. This bridge was of particular interest to myself as I had previously researched the Wea Creek Bridge in Topeka and my research indicated that this bridge was one of the three spans of the Pottawatomie Bridge at Paola of which the Wea Creek Bridge span was part. The three spans of the Paola bridge were disassembled and moved to three different locations in Miami County in 1906. According to the farmer I talked to when I visited the site and also whose land this bridge was on, the bridge was removed in 2008 as people were using the bridge for illegal dumping into the creek beneath it.
Source:
KSHS page with photograph.
http://khri.kansasgis.org/index.cfm?tab=details&in=121-0000-...
This is pure speculation, but this may be one of the missing spans from the Wea Creek Bowstring Bridge now on display on the grounds of the KSHS in Topeka. If so, it would be a Buckeye Bridge Works span.
The status of the bridge is unknown.
This may be the third span:
http://khri.kansasgis.org/index.cfm?in=121-0000-00207