Munfordville Bridge
Photos
Simon Bolivar Buckner memorial bridge
The old Munfordville bridge in the background as it existed in 1938, immediately after completion of the new Simon Bolivar Buckner memorial bridge in the foreground
University of Louisville Special Collections/Louisville and Nashville Railroad Records
Description
The Google Street View is from Washington Street on the north side of the river. With the bridge lost, N. Washington simply dead ends just short of the slope.An interesting feature of this bridge is that it did not have a southern approach. It was abutted onto the side of a ridge and intersected with a road that followed the old Buffalo trace from a river ford several hundred feet upriver. It was necessary to turn right onto the road immediately upon exiting the southern end of the bridge.
Operated as a toll bridge by local government for several years, the bridge was taken over by the state and continued to operate as a toll bridge until it was incorporated into the US Highway system as US-31W in 1928.
Facts
- Overview
- Lost Parker through truss bridge over Green River on L&N Turnpike/Dixie Highway
- Location
- Munfordville, Hart County, Kentucky
- Status
- Lost
- History
- Toll bridge on the Louisville and Nashville Turnpike replacing Amos Ferry at Big Buffalo Crossing
- Builder
- - Munfordville Bridge Co.
- Design
- 9-panel, pin-connected Parker through truss main span, flanked by two 5-panel, pin-connected Pratt through trusses, one on each side
- Dimensions
-
Length of largest span: 164.0 ft.
Total length: 1,170.0 ft.
- Also called
- L&N Turnpike
Woodsonville Bridge
Green River Bridge - Approximate latitude, longitude
- +37.26633, -85.88922 (decimal degrees)
37°15'59" N, 85°53'21" W (degrees°minutes'seconds") - Approximate UTM coordinates
- 16/598488/4124995 (zone/easting/northing)
- USGS topographic map
- Munfordville
- Inventory number
- BH 47253 (Bridgehunter.com ID)
Update Log
- December 23, 2012: Updated by James McCray: added this bridge to the s bridge category
- December 7, 2010: Updated by Mike Page: Toll system removed 1928 with US Highway status.
- December 6, 2010: Updated by Matthew Lohry: Updated truss types
- December 6, 2010: Added by Mike Page
Sources
- Mike Page
- Kentuckiana Digital Library - Large collection of Photos and Documents of historical interest of the Kentucky/Indiana region
- University of Louisville Special Collections and Archives
- Matt Lohry
- James McCray - jamesinslocomb [at] yahoo [dot] com
Comments
Many thanks to Matthew Lohry for ID'ing the truss type. I got the "pin-connected" part right.
This bridge posting is the best recent example of what I appreciate most about this site. Someone finds and shares a photo of a lost bridge and gradually the data and history and images are gathered until a clear "picture" is presented, in one location, with careful details and historical accuracy. Regards to all!
Reading some of their meeting minutes from 1905/1906, the "Munfordville Bridge Company" sounds more like local businessmen and financiers than bridge builders to me. But, that is the only company listed as builders on what records I could find. The courthouse lost quite a few records during a fire in the attic on 3 January 1928. Interestingly, the records I was reading today were also in the attic that day, but they were able to save many of them. Kudos to firefighters everywhere.
Details on this lost beauty are slow in coming. Any time "bridge" is mentioned in Hart County, everyone immediately assumes one is talking about the Green River railroad bridge that is the center of Munfordville's tourist industry. There are tens of thousands of documents on the RR bridge and the civil war battles around it. That makes researching any other bridge a slow, time consuming hunt. There is one really quite good photo of the old bridge, and I know there are quite a few Pontists that can identify trusses on sight, and any little bit of help would be greatly appreciated.
This page's URL is http://bridgehunter.com/ky/hart/munfordville/