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Norway Bridge
Photos
Photo taken by Nick Schmiedeler in November 2017
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BH Photo #411034
Description
Traveling through north central Kansas last week I stopped at an antique store in Republic County. Saw a commemorative plate from 1975 with a photo of a bridge on it, something called the Republican River Bridge at Norway with the date of 1975 stamped on it. Began research, found an article from The Salina Journal from 1979 (see photos for entire article in sequential pieces, fascinating story), all I have so far is a photo of the plate, screenshot photos of the entire bridge history article (was a pay site so I cheated a bit), and would invite more input on this seemingly forgotten three-span Whipple!!
Facts
- Overview
- Lost Whipple through truss bridge over Republican River on Kansas Highway 148 ( K-148)
- Location
- Norway, Republic County, Kansas
- Status
- Replaced by a new bridge
- History
- Built over the winter of 1886-1887. Please see bridge photos to read the entire story of the bridge, as I photographed, in segments, a story published in the Salina Journal on July 29th, 1979 re: detailed history & planned replacement in the Fall
- Builder
- - King Iron Bridge & Manufacturing Co. of Cleveland, Ohio [also known as King Bridge Co.]
- Design
- 3-span Whipple through truss, 473' long, made up of 3 157' spans. From the article (see photos), 2 plaques were on at least one end.
- Dimensions
-
Length of largest span: 157.0 ft.
Total length: 473.0 ft.
Deck width: 17.0 ft.
- Also called
- Norway Whipple Truss Bridge
Republican River Bridge
- Approximate latitude, longitude
- +39.69651, -97.79161 (decimal degrees)
39°41'47" N, 97°47'30" W (degrees°minutes'seconds")
- Approximate UTM coordinates
- 14/603604/4394771 (zone/easting/northing)
- Quadrangle map:
- Kackley
- Land survey
- Norway, Kansas
- Inventory number
- BH 79479 (Bridgehunter.com ID)
Update Log
- October 9, 2019: New photo from Melissa Brand-Welch
- November 17, 2017: New photo from Luke
- November 17, 2017: Added by Nick Schmiedeler
Sources
- Nick Schmiedeler - nick [at] nickschmiedeler [dot] com
- Luke
- Melissa Brand-Welch - melissabrandwelch [at] msn [dot] com
I was a college student working for the KS Highway during the summers of 1971 & 1972. I helped one of the engineers (Jim Haase) create blueprints for this bridge. It took about a month as I crawled all over the bridge measuring the thickness of the steel with calipers and noting locations of bolts, nuts, etc. I would yell out the measurements to Jim and he would meticulously document them.
Not sure this was a good use of government dollars since the bridge was replaced a few years later. However, I only made about $2 per hour.