Charlie Dye Bridge

Grundy County, Missouri

Photos

Overview

Photo taken Aug. 2002 by Charles Robinson

Map

Historic significance

Written by Clark Vance

Straight from Wikipedia:

Trenton was home to a Rock Island Railroad maintenance facility known as a roundhouse since 1900. The round house provided locomotive overhaul work for the Kansas City terminals and was a major employer for the Trenton area. A bitter strike in the 1940s pitted union workers against the railroad and scab labor who were still feeling the effects of the Great Depression. Strike breaking workers had to carry their tool boxes as they walked several miles to the round house. As a strike breaker named Hobbs walked across the bridge (now known as the Charlie Dye bridge) to Trenton in the early morning he encountered a group of striking union members drunk at the end of the bridge. He reached into his tool box and picked an item that would resemble a pistol and put it into his pocket. When he reached the thugs they jeered him but did not touch him since they had seen him put something in his pocket and he still had his hand on it. The next strike breaker that walked across the bridge was beaten to death.

Local authorities were hesitant to prosecute. Politics favored the strikers and no one was punished for the murder. Rock Island executives were outraged. They settled the strike but closed the roundhouse, moving the overhaul base to Kansas City. The result was that the trend of slow population growth was reversed and Trenton has slowly declined in population since that time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trenton,_Missouri

View Uglybridges.com report

Facts

Overview: Two-span through truss bridge over Thompson River on Crowder Road (Old MO 6) west of Trenton
Location: Grundy County, Missouri
Status: Closed to all traffic
History: Built 1921
Design: Two-span Warren through truss with additional sub-struts
Dimensions: Length of largest span: 120.0 ft.
Total length: 303.0 ft.
Deck width: 18.0 ft.
Vertical clearance above deck: 14.3 ft.
Also called: Thompson River Bridge
Approximate latitude, longitude: +40.07955, -93.64413 (decimal degrees)
40°04'46" N, 93°38'39" W (degrees°minutes'seconds")
Approximate UTM coordinates: 15/445080/4436785 (zone/easting/northing)
Land survey: T. 61 N., R. 24 W., Sec. 18
USGS topographic map: Trenton West
Inventory numbers: MO 040-397000.8 (Missouri off-system bridge number)
MONBI 23233 (Missouri bridge number on the National Bridge Inventory)
MoDOT F-247 (Missouri Dept. of Transportation bridge number)
BH 21559 (Bridgehunter.com ID)
Inspection (as of 03/2010): Deck condition rating: Poor (4 out of 9)
Superstructure condition rating: Poor (4 out of 9)
Substructure condition rating: Poor (4 out of 9)
Appraisal: Structurally deficient
Sufficiency rating: 31.8 (out of 100)
Average daily traffic (as of 2010): 100

Update Log

April 7, 2012: Essay added by Clark Vance
April 7, 2012: Updated by Tony Dillon: Modified information
April 7, 2012: Updated by James Baughn: Stephen Fender reports bridge is closed to traffic after failing an inspection
May 6, 2010: New photos from James Baughn
April 17, 2006: Posted photos from Charles Robinson

Sources

Charles Robinson - crobinson8 [at] charter [dot] net
James Baughn - webmaster [at] bridgehunter [dot] com
Clark Vance - cvance [at] dogmail [dot] com
Tony Dillon - spansaver [at] hotmail [dot] com

Comments

Thompson River Bridge

Posted April 7, 2012, by Stephen Fender (stephenfender [at] gmail [dot] com)

As of April 4,2012 the Thompson River Bridge, better known as Charlie Die Bridge, has been closed to traffic due to a failed MODOT inspection. The county is currently debating what to do with it. Will be sad to see it go.

Thompson River 3rd Street Bridge

Posted June 22, 2009, by Greg (gbh2000 [at] hotmail [dot] com)

A shot of the info located on the bridge.