Maple River Railroad Bridge
Looking East
Photo taken by John Marvig in June 2012
BH Photo #233228
Bridge was built in 1897 as a part of Bridge #Z-312 (Rock River Bridge) at Byron, Illinois. Moved to current location in 1910. This has been confirmed by blueprints, supplied by the Milwaukee Road Archives at the Milwaukee Central Library.
Wanted to shoot from those angles Glenn, but the foliage was killing me. And it was about 100 degrees, plus poison ivy was bad.
Here is as I found this bridge on the afternoon of October 22nd, 2011. I have a friend who remembered seeing this bridge many years ago so we went on a search for it in Good Thunder. As large as it is, this bridge is quite well camouflaged from the road side. I was actually startled when the bridged "suddenly appeared" from the heavily wooded area we were searching intensely.
These and other of my photos can be found and mapped via Google Earth, Google Maps or Panoramio.
Had a very nice chat with the gentleman who owns this bridge. He would like to preserve it at all costs, and does his best to maintain it currently. The world needs more bridge lovers like this!