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Suring Old Oconto River Bridge

Oconto County, Wisconsin
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Photos 

Looking Northwest

This is the old bridge; the new bridge is hidden behind it.

Photo taken by Robert Thompson

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Map 

Street View 

Description 

This bridge was replaced by a UECB of notably bland design. Only the graffiti of the local stoners gives the new bridge any color or distinction. But someone saw fit to save the existing bridge, even going to the expense of building new abutments to place it on. Bravo to the preservationists with the foresight to save an important piece of local history!

Facts 

Overview
Parker through truss bridge over Oconto River on State Highway 32
Location
Suring, Oconto County, Wisconsin
Status
Moved over to sit parallel to replacement bridge.
Future prospects
Good. New abutments were built just downstream of the original location, and the bridge was moved over.
History
Built 1936. Relocated ca. 1999.
Builder
- Wausau Bridge and Iron? No data.
Design
Seeing that the vertical columns are rolled I-beams rather than paired channels riveted together, I'd guess that it was built in the 1940's or 1950's. Design details are similar to other bridges I've seen from Wausau Bridge & Iron.
Dimensions
Length of largest span: 140.4 ft.
Total length: 145.0 ft.
Deck width: 32.2 ft.
Also called
Old State Highway 32 Bridge
Old Main Street Bridge
Approximate latitude, longitude
+44.99869, -88.38024   (decimal degrees)
44°59'55" N, 88°22'49" W   (degrees°minutes'seconds")
Approximate UTM coordinates
16/391213/4983731 (zone/easting/northing)
USGS topographic map
Berry Lake
Inventory number
BH 46261 (Bridgehunter.com ID)

Categories 

Built 1936 (746)
Built during 1930s (8,551)
Have street view (9,889)
Oconto County, Wisconsin (11)
Oconto River (3)
Open to Pedestrians (2,084)
Owned by state (9,807)
Parker through truss (947)
Parker truss (1,267)
 Preserved (652)
Span length 125-175 feet (2,954)
Suring, Wisconsin (1)
Through truss (9,205)
Total length 125-175 feet (4,136)
Truss (23,568)
Wausau Bridge and Iron? No data. (1)
Wisconsin (804)

Update Log 

  • September 20, 2010: Updated by Nathan Holth: Merged NBI Data Into Bridge Page
  • September 19, 2010: Added by Robert Thompson

Sources 

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Comments 

Suring Old Oconto River Bridge
Posted September 20, 2010, by Robert Thompson

Thanks for that...

RKT

Suring Old Oconto River Bridge
Posted September 20, 2010, by Nathan Holth (form3 [at] historicbridges [dot] org)

This is a fantastic preservation example! I am dealing with a bridge in British Columbia that was moved over just like this, but in that case so the historic bridge could serve as a temporary bridge until a replacement bridge is complete. Problem with British Columbia is that they want to demolish the historic bridge after the new bridge is built which is pointless and stupid.

Also, I added the NBI data for the truss bridge in so you have construction date and structure length info. Its hard to find because the 1992 NBI Import feature doesn't work on BridgeHunter, because there is an error in the 1992 Wisconsin Inventory. I was able to recover the data from my copy of the 1997 Wisconsin Inventory. I am attaching my detailed NBI sheet for this bridge to this post, for additional reference.

Robert Thompson, you may want to refine and update your design and description comments to reflect the newly found data on the bridge.

View attachment #1 (PDF document, version 1.5, 39030 bytes)