Jacob P. Bernard

Photo 2 is not the Gilbert Street Bridge. It is the Woolen Mill Bridge.

http://bridgehunter.com/il/vermilion/woolen-mill

Hey Mike, do you have any info on Short's Bridge?

Is this a photo of the round supports that Mike was talking about?

Who keeps editing this page by adding the railroad initials? I would like it to stop, please.

I wonder then, where would the wrong build dates come from?

Where did this new info of the build date come from? The Iowa Engineer article says it was built around 1885, a different article says 1884.

How in any way is this bridge historic?

Huh, that's odd, because everyone else says that it collapsed and a replica was built. I'm really comfused.

The bridge DID partially collapse and the rest of the timbers were used in the replica that was built.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/de/Portlandmillsbridge2.jpg

James,

Here are a few pictures of the old railroad yard east of town which was abandoned in 1940 and razed in 1941. All of these are from the Rankin library, which was formerly the station.

The first picture is a view looking east at the roundhouse and turntable.

The second one is looking west towards town.

The third one is of the coal dock.

The forth one is an aerial view from 1940 after the yard was abandoned.

I hope these are useful to you.

I have to agree, having a street view of the UCEB replacement to a lost truss bridge is indeed a "poop quake". There is no use in a street view of the replacement. It is not necessary at all.

Do you possibly have any more pictures of the Illinois Terminal bridge parallel to this one?

What a nice way to add some appearance to a modern interstate bridge. I remember seeing it when I would visit my father.

Maybe, but I don't know. If I had to guess, I would think it was the traffic that caused the bridge to have structural issues. The volume of traffic on both the Mill St. Bridge and Victory Bridge increased through the years so the bridges probably slowly started deteriorating.

It should be noted that the bascule span was originally from a concrete arch bridge built in 1909 and collapsed in the same year; that's the reason why the bascule span wasn't aligned with the through truss.