Rating:
4 votes

Rockville Bridge

Washington County, Utah

Photos 

Bridge Street Bridge

Photo taken by Bill Culp, submitted by Craig Philpott

Enlarge

BH Photo #251803

Map 

Street View 

Description 

In the 1920s, the National Park service was developing an automobile tour route that would simplify access to southern Utah and norther Arizona parks. They built this bridge, which removed about 30 miles from the approximately 90 mile route from Zion National Park to Pipe Spring National Monument.

In 2012, Utah DOT inspection showed significant deterioration and reduced the load rating from 25 to 14 tons. Federal funds were to replace this bridge with a new two-lane bridge. The town of Rockville now owns the bridge, so the 247 residents were polled which indicating a preference for keeping the old bridge.

In 2015 Rockville successfully petitioned for the scope of work to change from replacement to rehabilitation, thereby saving the last of the automotive Parker through truss bridges in the state.

While most of the budget is covered by federal funds, about $170,000 needs to be provided by the locals. The town has done volunteer fund raising to assist in saving their bridge.

The rehabilitation also includes upgrades to achieve a modern 25 ton weight rating. The upgrades include: Replacing the stringers with stronger ones Bolting "cover plates" to the bottom of the existing floor beams Bolting plates to the first diagonals to improve compression loading

Facts 

Overview
Through truss bridge over Virgin River on Bridge Street in Rockville
Location
Rockville, Washington County, Utah
Status
Open to traffic
History
Built 1924, NRHP listed 1995, condemend 2012, successful petition for rehab 2016.
Builders
- C.F. Dinsmore Co. of Ogden. Utah (Erector)
- Minneapolis Steel & Machinery Co. of Minneapolis, Minnesota (Fabricator)
Design
one lane,11 panel, riveted, Parker, through truss
Dimensions
Length of largest span: 216.9 ft.
Total length: 222.1 ft.
Deck width: 17.7 ft.
Vertical clearance above deck: 15.9 ft.
Recognition
Posted to the National Register of Historic Places in 1995
Also called
Bridge Street Bridge
Approximate latitude, longitude
+37.15889, -113.03750   (decimal degrees)
37°09'32" N, 113°02'15" W   (degrees°minutes'seconds")
Approximate UTM coordinates
12/319078/4114442 (zone/easting/northing)
Quadrangle map:
Springdale West
Elevation
82063740 ft. above sea level
Average daily traffic (as of 2010)
252
Inventory numbers
NRHP 95000982 (National Register of Historic Places reference number)
BH 33537 (Bridgehunter.com ID)
Inspection report (as of February 2018)
Overall condition: Fair
Superstructure condition rating: Satisfactory (6 out of 9)
Substructure condition rating: Satisfactory (6 out of 9)
Deck condition rating: Good (7 out of 9)
Sufficiency rating: 31.2 (out of 100)
View more at BridgeReports.com

Categories 

11-panel truss (38)
Bridgemapper.com (1,325)
Built 1924 (744)
Built during 1920s (9,922)
C.F. Dinsmore Co. (3)
Corrugated deck (488)
Functionally obsolete (6,426)
Have street view (26,947)
Minneapolis Steel & Machinery Co. (27)
NR-listed (2,960)
One-lane traffic (7,606)
Open (39,882)
 Owned by city (5,399)
Parker through truss (1,296)
Parker truss (1,677)
Riveted (2,165)
Rockville, Utah (1)
Span length 175-250 feet (1,987)
Through truss (15,062)
Total length 175-250 feet (4,265)
Truss (32,784)
Utah (339)
Washington County, Utah (25)

Update Log 

  • August 5, 2017: Updated by Fmiser: wrote description, added design info, expanded one-line history
  • May 18, 2015: Updated by Nathan Holth: Add NRHP Number
  • April 16, 2014: Updated by Luke Harden: Added builder
  • April 16, 2014: New photos from Steve Conro
  • September 20, 2013: HAER photos posted by Nathan Holth
  • March 30, 2013: New photo from Craig Philpott
  • May 3, 2010: New Street View added by Craig Philpott

Sources 

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Comments 

Rockville Bridge
Posted May 15, 2019, by Nathan Holth (webmaster [at] historicbridges [dot] org)

Rehabilitation complete: https://www.stgeorgeutah.com/news/archive/2019/05/04/raw-roc...

Rockville Bridge
Posted August 5, 2017, by Tony Dillon (spansaver [at] hotmail [dot] com)

This is awesome!

We need all communities to Love their historic bridges like this one does!!!

Rockville Bridge
Posted August 5, 2017, by Fmiser (fmiser [at] gmail [dot] com)

Thanks, Pamela.

The owner info is now updated, and other information improved too.

Rockville Bridge
Posted August 4, 2017, by Pamela Leach, Mayor, Town of Rockville (rulucky2ranch [at] infowest [dot] com)

Please note on your records that the Rockville Bridge is owned by the Town of Rockville and not the National Park Service. Federal and local funding is in place and the bridge will be restored in 2018. Restoration efforts will bring the bridge back to its previous 25 ton load rating while preserving its historic structure and place on the National Register of Historic Places.

Rockville is proud of this bridge and extremely pleased that efforts to raise funds to preserve it have been successful.

Thank you!

Rockville Bridge
Posted October 11, 2015, by ArtS (asuckewer [at] knite [dot] com)

Preservation efforts:

http://www.thespectrum.com/story/news/2015/10/10/rockville-d...

Rockville Bridge
Posted May 18, 2015, by Nathan Holth (webmaster [at] historicbridges [dot] org)

NRHP Nomination Form Attached.

Attachment #1 (application/pdf; 1,147,645 bytes)