Bennington Bridge
Facts
- Overview
- Lost rainbow arch bridge over Solomon River on 180th Road
- Location
- Ottawa County, Kansas
- Status
- Demolished Summer 2006
- History
- Built 1928
- Builder
- - Shaw and Wolke
- Design
- Concrete through arch
- Dimensions
-
Length of largest span: 144.0 ft.
Total length: 315.8 ft.
Deck width: 20.0 ft.
Vertical clearance above deck: 15.0 ft.
- Also called
- Rainbow Bridge
- Approximate latitude, longitude
- +39.00584, -97.59187 (decimal degrees)
39°00'21" N, 97°35'31" W (degrees°minutes'seconds") - Approximate UTM coordinates
- 14/621924/4318368 (zone/easting/northing)
- Quadrangle map:
- Bennington
- Land survey
- T. 12 S., R 2 W., Sec. 18
- Average daily traffic (as of 2008)
- 100
- Inventory numbers
- KS 000720793104366 (Kansas local bridge number on the National Bridge Inventory)
BH 18353 (Bridgehunter.com ID) - Inspection report (as of January 2018)
- Overall condition: Good
Superstructure condition rating: Very Good (8 out of 9)
Substructure condition rating: Very Good (8 out of 9)
Deck condition rating: Very Good (8 out of 9)
Sufficiency rating: 95 (out of 100)
View more at BridgeReports.com
Update Log
- October 19, 2016: Updated by Robert Elder: Added category "Marsh arch (tied)"
- July 8, 2016: Updated by Robert Elder: Added categories "Marsh arch", "Concrete Tied Arch", "Tied Arch"
- February 23, 2016: New Street View added by Robert Elder
- April 27, 2010: Updated by Robert Elder: Entered (1) in Number of main spans.
- January 20, 2010: Updated by Robert Elder: Edited GPS Coordinates.
- December 17, 2009: Updated by Robert Elder: Edited Builders
- August 24, 2009: Updated by Robert Elder: Added alternate name. Bridge was also called Rainbow Bridge.
- December 22, 2006: Posted photos from Richard With of vintage mile markers near the bridge site
Sources
- Robert Elder - robertelder1 [at] gmail [dot] com
- Richard With - withrg [at] sbcglobal [dot] net
Comments
Interestingly, this bridge was nominated for the 8 wonders of Kansas Architecture - a list that ended up including no bridges:
KSHS page with photograph:
http://khri.kansasgis.org/index.cfm?tab=details&in=143-0000-...
This bridge was considered to be not eligible for the NRHP.
For the record, it was the first bridge for which I submitted photographs to Bridgehunter.
I appreciate the pictures you posted of the bridge before we took it down, as I am a resident of Bennington, I just got lucky and was assigned to this project. I hated to see it go, but the arch trusses and deck were heavy enough they were crushing the piercaps and the column had major wear and defiencies when I excavated to the bottom of the footers to remove them. My job is bridge removal and replacement, but I love old bridges.
Oops, sorry. In the previous post, I should have said Minneapolis not Manhattan KS.
I have been "collecting" bridges of this type for about 14 years. This one was really worth saving for alot of reasons. In addition to being in good shape for the amount of traffic, it was the only one I've observed in Kansas that had the stream name in the cross ties rather than the usual date of construction. In addition, it still had signage associated with it that showed it to have been on the 1930s alignment of US-81. Further north of Bennington the older 1920s route of US-81 was still marked by unique triangular cross section mile markers on the (barely) two-lane brick route winding from Bennington into Manhattan, KS. I will be forwarding some pictures of those features soon.
I am somewhat surprised that this bridge was demolished, particularly as it was on a rural road that did not carry a large amount of traffic. This was one of the best examples of a single span Rainbow Arch bridge in Kansas and possible in the USA. It was also a rare example of a Rainbow Arch with 4 buttresses over the roadway. I am glad that I took several pictures of this bridge over the last few years.
I am helping knock down this bridge, and took several pictures of when the main arch trusses dropped. If anyone is interested in the pics email me.
This page's URL is http://bridgehunter.com/ks/ottawa/bennington/
Website which discusses the replacement project. Includes photographs of the new bridge:
http://schwab-eaton.com/content/projects/transportation-syst...