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Maxdale Bridge

Bell County, Texas

Photos 

Maxdale Bridge Bell Couny Texas

Maxdale truss bridge and deck

Photo taken by Larry D. Moore in August 2018

License: Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike (CC BY-SA)

Enlarge

BH Photo #432788

Map 

Update of condition of bridge and roadway, South side 

Written by Jon Fleenor

Since the original photographs were taken by Larry D. Moore in August 2018,the bridge and area has become popular much in part by the stories of ghosts on the bridge and history surrounding it. As a result, there is now graffiti covering the roadway leading to the bridge, as well as the historical plaque and almost completely covering the deck of the bridge.

The bridge still appears to be structurally sound/solid, with areas of the exposed wooden deck showing rot.

Facts 

Overview
Parker through truss bridge over Lampasas River on Maxdale Road
Location
Bell County, Texas
Status
Open to pedestrians only
History
Built 1914
Builder
- Hess & Skinner Engr Co
Design
10-panel Pinned, Parker through truss
Dimensions
Length of largest span: 200.1 ft.
Total length: 360.9 ft.
Deck width: 15.4 ft.
Vertical clearance above deck: 14.5 ft.
Approximate latitude, longitude
+30.98861, -97.82944   (decimal degrees)
30°59'19" N, 97°49'46" W   (degrees°minutes'seconds")
Approximate UTM coordinates
14/611765/3428927 (zone/easting/northing)
Quadrangle map:
Ding Dong
Inventory numbers
TXNBI 090140AA0539001 (Texas bridge number on the National Bridge Inventory)
BH 32764 (Bridgehunter.com ID)

Categories 

Bell County, Texas (24)
Built 1914 (809)
Built during 1910s (9,632)
Hess & Skinner Engr Co (1)
Open to pedestrians (4,208)
Owned by county (20,778)
Parker through truss (1,295)
 Parker truss (1,676)
Pin-connected (3,901)
Span length 175-250 feet (1,988)
Texas (2,471)
Through truss (15,052)
Total length 250-500 feet (5,223)
Truss (32,771)

Update Log 

  • October 1, 2020: Essay added by Jon Fleenor
  • August 8, 2018: Updated by Christopher Finigan: Added category "Pin-connected"
  • August 7, 2018: Updated by Larry D. Moore: Added builder, image and changed status to open to pedestrians
  • March 26, 2017: Updated by Tony Dillon: Added truss type

Sources 

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Comments 

Maxdale Bridge
Posted October 2, 2020, by Nathan Holth (webmaster [at] historicbridges [dot] org)

Tony,

Did Vincennes have anything to do with Missouri Valley Bridge and Iron Works? Because the marker text from THC reported that Hess and Skinner were agents for what they called the "Missouri Bridge Company"

https://historicbridges.org/bridges/browser/?bridgebrowser=t...

Maxdale Bridge
Posted October 1, 2020, by Tony Dillon (spansaver [at] hotmail [dot] com)

Very distinctive plaque that matches those of the Vincennes Bridge Company. I would bet a few bucks that VBC was subcontracted to fabricate the trusses.