Dallas-Oak Cliff Viaduct
Documents
 | DALLAS OAK CLIFF STREET VIADUCT HAER No. TX-33 Texas Historic Bridges Recording ProjectPDF (104 KB) Posted by Jesse Sharkoman Berube
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Description
This concrete viaduct connecting the City of Dallas with its suburb Oak Cliff was constructed as a direct result of the disastrous May 1908 flood which cut off and hampered transportation and communication for several days and caused numerous casualties.The viaduct carried State Highways 1 and 6, and U S Highways 67, 77 and 80 until reassigned or replaced by freeway and turnpike construction in the 1950s.
It continues to serve as a primary intra city artery and is presently (2014) being upgraded and modified to carry a trolley system along with auto traffic and bicycles.
Facts
- Overview
- Open-spandrel arch bridge over Trinity River on Houston Street in Dallas
- Location
- Dallas, Dallas County, Texas
- Status
- Open to one-way southbound traffic
- History
- Built 1911; DART Dallas Streetcar LRT tracks installed 2015
- Builders
- - Corrigan, Lee & Halpin of Kansas City (General Contractor)
- Gulf Concrete Construction Co. (Foundation Sub-Contractor)
- Hedrick & Cochrane of Kansas City, Missouri (Consulting Engineers)
- J. F. Witt (Chief Engineer)
- M.R. Ash (Associate Engineer)
- Railroads
- - Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART)
- Light Rail
- Design
- Continuous Open-Spandrel Arch with Tee Beam Over Old Trinity River Channel and Tee Beam Approach Spans
- Dimensions
-
Length of largest span: 103.0 ft.
Total length: 4,785.3 ft. (0.9 mi.)
Deck width: 33.1 ft.
- Recognition
- Posted to the National Register of Historic Places on August 9, 1984
- Also called
- Houston Street Viaduct
- Approximate latitude, longitude
- +32.76817, -96.81031 (decimal degrees)
32°46'05" N, 96°48'37" W (degrees°minutes'seconds") - Approximate UTM coordinates
- 14/705105/3627708 (zone/easting/northing)
- Quadrangle map:
- Dallas
- Average daily traffic (as of 2016)
- 3,050
- Inventory numbers
- NRHP 84001641 (National Register of Historic Places reference number)
TXNBI 180570000911079 (Texas bridge number on the National Bridge Inventory)
BH 32929 (Bridgehunter.com ID) - Inspection report (as of August 2018)
- Overall condition: Poor
Superstructure condition rating: Fair (5 out of 9)
Substructure condition rating: Satisfactory (6 out of 9)
Deck condition rating: Poor (4 out of 9)
Sufficiency rating: 52.8 (out of 100)
View more at BridgeReports.com
Update Log
- June 30, 2022: Document added by Jesse Sharkoman Berube
- April 15, 2022: New Street View added by Bambi Sharkoman
- April 2, 2022: New photos from Bambi Sharkoman
- March 30, 2022: Updated by Bambi Sharkoman: Added J. F, Witt as Engineer
- February 21, 2022: New photo from Bambi Sharkoman
- February 15, 2022: New photos from Bambi Sharkoman
- January 9, 2022: New photo from Geoff Hubbs
- March 3, 2020: New photos from Geoff Hubbs
- May 28, 2015: Updated by Luke: Added categories "LIght Rail", "Dallas Area Rapid Transit"
- October 30, 2014: Updated by M C Toyer: add history and vintage photograph
- December 29, 2013: New photos from Luke Harden
- October 24, 2012: Updated by Luke Harden: Added builder
- September 13, 2012: New photos from W Schutz
- May 5, 2010: New Street View added by Nathan Holth
Sources
- Nathan Holth
- HAER
- Luke
- Todd Wilson
- M C Toyer - mctoyer [at] hotmail [dot] com
- Geoff Hubbs
- Jesse Sharkoman Berube - jesseberube5 [at] gmail [dot] com
Comments
This unique part of Dallas was designed by my great uncle, Victor Cochrane.
There are family stories of him along with the construction engineer overseeing the construction and correcting even the smallest flaw, the battle of the perfectionists---------
As a young lad in on Jan 2, 1951 General Yardmaster Harmon Young hired me as a switchman to work on the steam engine number seven. I worked there until I went into the army in 1957. After the army I worked for the SLSF RR. Under the Houston Street bridge was my many many trips as we change to and fro between the eleven tracks at Dallas Union Station on the steam engine. On the West side of the bridge we had a Y that we turned trains and rr cars. The Y would hold seven rr cars. Once the Towerman put a TP frieght train under the bridge on the Y track and a load with auto frames that was too high destroyed some the bridge support beams. Th bridge as always a spot for drunks and folks that bumed rides on the freight trains. I have a lot of stories of Union Station in the early 1950s. I do not have any pictures.
i remember the old trolley and the sparks above it from the cables that ran it. amazed @ five years old!!
This page's URL is http://bridgehunter.com/tx/dallas/houston/
The 1912 Library of Congress image is an excerpt of a panoramic photo showing the central span over the original Trinity River channel. Note that it is a deck plate girder truss which was incorporated to facilitate anticipated navigation and barge traffic.
This viaduct predates the levee construction by nearly two decades. The east levee was built just to the southwest of the central span leaving it and the northeast half of the viaduct outside the diversion channel.
In the midground is a temporary construction bridge and behind that the ca 1899 Grand Avenue / Zang Boulevard Bridge which crossed the river bank to bank then the bottoms via a causeway. The causeway was truncated by the levee construction and the bridge isolated and abandoned in place where it served as a base for advertising billboards until about 1942 when it was demolished.
The original Trinity River channel serves as a collector for storm water runoff which is pumped through the levees.