Plemons Bridge
Photos
3/4 View from Bluff to South
Photo taken by Historic American Engineering Record
View photos at Library of Congress
BH Photo #139591
Description
This unusually long (approximately 2,400 feet) one-lane bridge is composed of thirty riveted and bolted steel Warren pony trusses, each about 80 feet long. It was constructed in 1926 by Austin Bridge Company of Dallas, Texas, to provide access to Borger area oil fields, and served Hutchinson County residents as part of a secondary route between Borger and Stinnett.In its semi-monthly publication, The Alarm Clock, the company noted in May 1926 that "at the present time from 100 to 500 vehicles per day are being towed across the river by teams. The bridge is to be paid for with tolls, and is to become a free bridge as soon as we get our money back." It is unknown at what point the structure became a free bridge, but due to a sharp reduction in the oil field activity for which it was originally constructed, it currently carries a limited amount of traffic.
The Stinnett Road Bridge has one traffic lane approximately 16 feet wide and is curved toward its south end, which makes it difficult for motorists to see opposing traffic until it is too late to avoid a conflict. Presumably, vehicles occasionally have to back up in order to allow other traffic to cross. However, only a few vehicles cross the bridge per hour on an average day, and there are only a limited number of residences and no commercial activity on this secondary road. Most traffic between Borger and Stinnett utilizes the shorter and more direct State Route 207, located a few miles west of County Route 225. The Stinnett Road Bridge is not unusual in terms of its basic design in that the Warren pony truss is a very common bridge type. In its original form, the Warren truss is composed of a series of equilateral triangles, without any vertical members. The diagonals function both as compression and tension members, and without counters or verticals the midspan members can suffer from stress reversal under certain loads.
Like most surviving Warren trusses, the thirty 80-foot-long pony trusses comprising the Stinnett Road Bridge were built with vertical members.3 A combination of rivets and bolts connect the members via gusset plates. The inclined end posts, top chord and bottom chord of the trusses are solid steel I-beams, while the verticals are channels riveted together with batten plates. The I-beams are stamped "Bethlehem," indicating that they were rolled by the Bethlehem Steel Company of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, while the channels are stamped "Colorado," indicating that they were rolled by the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company of Pueblo, Colorado. The diagonals are channels, connected either by battens or by lacing bars. The bridge's substructure is composed of steel reinforced concrete piers. Austin Bridge Company The bridge was built by one of the most prolific of all Texas-based bridge companies in the twentieth century.
Although the Stinnett Road Bridge is not unusual in terms of its design, nor a rare example of the work of its builder, it is an unusually long collection of Warren pony trusses and is unique in its visual impact. The fact that is bears a fairly light traffic load may account for its continued existence, because such a long one-lane bridge would never survive the demands of heavy, two-way traffic. At present, it survives as an interesting artifact from a tumultuous period in Hutchinson County history.
STINNETT ROAD BRIDGE HAER No. TX-42
Facts
- Overview
- Thirty-span Warren pony truss bridge over the Canadian River on CR 225
- Location
- Hutchinson County, Texas
- Status
- Closed to traffic
- Future prospects
- Closed as of 8/11/2009. As of 2014, Bypassed and abandoned.
- History
- Built 1926; Closed 2009; Bypassed 2013
- Builder
- - Austin Bridge Co. of Dallas, Texas/Atlanta, Georgia
- Design
- 30-span Warren pony truss bridge.
- Dimensions
-
Length of largest span: 80.1 ft.
Total length: 2,471.2 ft. (0.5 mi.)
Deck width: 15.4 ft.
Vertical clearance above deck: 9.2 ft.
- Also called
- Canadian River Bridge
Stinnett Road Bridge - Approximate latitude, longitude
- +35.75000, -101.34889 (decimal degrees)
35°45'00" N, 101°20'56" W (degrees°minutes'seconds") - Approximate UTM coordinates
- 14/287615/3958764 (zone/easting/northing)
- Quadrangle map:
- Phillips
- Elevation
- 2745 ft. above sea level
- Average daily traffic (as of 2005)
- 50
- Inventory numbers
- TXNBI 041180AA0225002 (Texas bridge number on the National Bridge Inventory)
BH 33123 (Bridgehunter.com ID) - Inspection report (as of February 2009)
- Overall condition: Poor
Superstructure condition rating: Poor (4 out of 9)
Substructure condition rating: Critical (2 out of 9)
Deck condition rating: Satisfactory (6 out of 9)
Sufficiency rating: 22.2 (out of 100)
View more at BridgeReports.com
Update Log
- July 2, 2022: Document added by Jesse Sharkoman Berube
- March 6, 2022: New photos from Mark Gonzalez
- January 14, 2015: Updated by Nathan Holth: Status: Bypassed and abandoned.
- February 12, 2013: Updated by Tony Dillon: Added name
- October 4, 2011: New Street View added by Craig Philpott
- May 4, 2010: New Street View added by Nathan Holth
- December 20, 2009: New video from Barclay Gibson
- August 20, 2009: Updated by John Cross: "Bridge has been Closed", "Photos/Info Added"
- May 2, 2009: New photos from Rick Mattioni
Sources
- HAER TX-42 - Stinnett Road Bridge, Spanning Canadian River at County Route 225, Borger vicinity, Hutchinson County, TX
- Rick Mattioni
- John Cross - jcrossiam [at] gmail [dot] com
- Nathan Holth
- Craig Philpott - craigphilpott63 [at] gmail [dot] com
- Tony Dillon - spansaver [at] hotmail [dot] com
- Mark Gonzalez - markgonzalez0619 [at] gmail [dot] com
- Plemons Bridge - HistoricBridges.org
- Jesse Sharkoman Berube - jesseberube5 [at] gmail [dot] com
This page's URL is http://bridgehunter.com/tx/hutchinson/411800225002/
A new bridge has been built and the historic bridge left standing next to the replacement.