Photo taken by C. Hanchey
License: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial (CC BY-NC)
BH Photo #235159
Perhaps this bridge should be an early cautionary tale of just what happens when you don't maintain them! Out of service by the end of 1949...eep. (Where did the previous 1929 date come from?)
The new info is a great find. Just one question (maybe two) remains now - when did they decided to give up on razing it for so long? Or did they still raze it, and the ruins were just all that was left from it until 2015?
Especially one that (although a ruin) was when built among the earliest and largest of its kind in the entire state of Michigan. Please refer to my well-researched page here: http://historicbridges.org/bridges/browser/?bridgebrowser=mi...
A concrete tee beam isn't a UCEB.
Ahh, ordinary UCEB.....
Looking at the pier remnants in Pic #6--it looks kind of like the face of a troll, right in the middle...weird!
Amen to that comment, brother. It's like once they developed reinforced concrete bridges, nothing else would do - and nobody gave a thought to longevity. We have a similar situation here in Oregon where they built some stunningly beautiful reinforced concrete bridges on Highway 101 - only to discover that the concrete absorbs salt water, the iron reinforcing rods rust and swell, cracking the concrete and dooming the bridges. They've already had to replace the Alsea bay bridge, and they've installed electrolysis devises on other bridges to try to prevent the rust damage - a stop gap measure at best. And now, even if you wanted to replace a concrete bridge with an iron truss bridge, good luck finding a bridge company that still manufactures them. I suspect most of them have gone out of business because everybody was building concrete bridges instead...
I have been on a similar bridge such as this one. I suppose you could say it was the urban explorer in me or the intrepid historian trying to capture something the rest of us forgot. The first time, scary yet somehow exhilarating. The second ... no fear at all. You could be diagnosed with cancer and die within a month. Crap like that happens all the time. You realize life is too short to be getting one's knickers in a knot or wringing your hands endlessly over this, that, or the other. I agree with Gene.
Hey... Bring back Evil Kenevil or the Dukes of Hazzard as I'm sure they would love this one!
Dangerous for what? It is closed, and probably blocked off, so you are at "your own risk" if you attempt to get on it. Are you afraid parts will fall off in the water, perhaps killing some fish? The world is full of dangers, part of life is learning how to stay safe.
There is not much information after 1950. Idk what happened. They were intent on demolishing it.