Madisonville Bridge
Facts
- Overview
- Through truss bridge formerly over Spencer Creek on Madisonville Road just beyond the end of Route C, but now located in a field just north of its old location
- Location
- Ralls County, Missouri
- Status
- Relocated to a nearby field after being purchases by a local couple. Replaced by new bridge
- History
- Built 1893 by St. Louis Bridge & Iron Co.; relocated to a nearby field in 2005
- Builder
- - St. Louis Bridge & Iron Co. of St. Louis, Missouri
- Design
- Wrought iron, pin-connected, 6-panel Pratt through truss
- Dimensions
-
Length of largest span: 100.0 ft.
Total length: 130.9 ft.
Deck width: 13.4 ft.
Vertical clearance above deck: 15.0 ft.
- Approximate latitude, longitude
- +39.45302, -91.49717 (decimal degrees)
39°27'11" N, 91°29'50" W (degrees°minutes'seconds") - Approximate UTM coordinates
- 15/629301/4368128 (zone/easting/northing)
- Quadrangle map:
- Spencerburg
- Land survey
- T. 54 N., R. 5 W., Sec. 19
- Inventory numbers
- MO 087-220000.4 (Missouri off-system bridge number)
MONBI 19396 (Missouri bridge number on the National Bridge Inventory)
BH 22410 (Bridgehunter.com ID)
Update Log
- August 22, 2011: Updated by Tony Dillon: Fixed a typo
- August 22, 2011: Updated by Ben Tate: bridge was not lost; just relocated to a nearby field after being purchased by a local couple
- September 26, 2009: Confirmed that bridge has been replaced
Sources
- Missouri Historic Bridge Inventory
- James Baughn - webmaster [at] bridgehunter [dot] com
- Ben Tate - benji5221 [at] yahoo [dot] com
- Tony Dillon - spansaver [at] hotmail [dot] com
Comments
It's always nice to stumble upon a "lost" bridge. The Madisonville Bridge was thought to be lost after it was replaced and removed in 2005. After I stumbled upon a Pratt through truss frame sitting in a field, I asked some workers about it. They said a local couple wanted purchased it when they heard it was being replaced. They said they have a great spot on their land for it. However for the last 6 years it's been sitting in a field with no deck. The man said the wife was the one who really wanted to restore it, and he believes they will get around to it someday. By the way, the workers I talked to were replacing the wooden deck on the Brush Creek Road Bridge(ca.1911) at the time. They said if the state had the money, it would have been replaced. Thankfully, they chose to replace the deck since it was the cheaper route.
This page's URL is http://bridgehunter.com/mo/ralls/19396/
The correct name for this bridge is Butler Ford Bridge. It was an important structure on the old Vandalia Road and was built around 1892. Butler is a Registered Historic Structure (somewhere I have a copy of the papers). I will dig this info up very soon and update it, including a photograph when it was still in recent use.