Washington Avenue Bridge
Facts
- Overview
- Through truss bridge over Brazos River on Washington Avenue in Waco
- Location
- Waco, McLennan County, Texas
- Status
- Open to traffic
- History
- Built 1901
- Builders
- - J.H. Sparks of St. Joseph, Missouri
- John W. Maxcy of Houston, Texas (Resident Engineer)
- Design
- Pin-connected Pennsylvania through truss
- Dimensions
-
Length of largest span: 450.2 ft.
Total length: 567.0 ft.
Deck width: 21.7 ft.
Vertical clearance above deck: 14.0 ft.
- Recognition
- Posted to the National Register of Historic Places on February 20, 1998
- Approximate latitude, longitude
- +31.56119, -97.12878 (decimal degrees)
31°33'40" N, 97°07'44" W (degrees°minutes'seconds") - Approximate UTM coordinates
- 14/677614/3493277 (zone/easting/northing)
- Average daily traffic (as of 2016)
- 3,800
- Inventory numbers
- NRHP 98000143 (National Register of Historic Places reference number)
TXNBI 091610B00331001 (Texas bridge number on the National Bridge Inventory)
BH 33251 (Bridgehunter.com ID) - Inspection report (as of April 2018)
- Overall condition: Fair
Superstructure condition rating: Fair (5 out of 9)
Substructure condition rating: Satisfactory (6 out of 9)
Deck condition rating: Very Good (8 out of 9)
Sufficiency rating: 61.5 (out of 100)
View more at BridgeReports.com
Update Log
- February 14, 2018: New photos from Dana and Kay Klein
- March 25, 2015: New photos from Royce and Bobette Haley
- November 15, 2012: New photos from Brent Tindall
- February 14, 2011: New photo from Scott Wiley
- February 13, 2011: Updated by Anthony Dillon: Corrected date and added builder
- February 13, 2011: New photos from Scott Wiley
- July 25, 2010: New Street View added by James Baughn
Sources
- Scott Wiley - fifty [dot] fathoms [at] yahoo [dot] com
- Tony Dillon - spansaver [at] hotmail [dot] com
- Brent Tindall - bizzat219 [at] yahoo [dot] com
- Flickr - The original color in an old postcard
- Todd Wilson
- Royce and Bobette Haley - roycehaley111 [at] yahoo [dot] com
- Dana and Kay Klein
Comments
This bridge is incredibly beautiful, and it's nice to see a restoration project completed as accurately as this one was! I'm personally a fan of the "2-tone" black & silver paint scheme, where the portal bracing and upper chord/endposts are painted silver, and the remainder of the superstructure--all truss members and sway bracing--are painted black. It really makes a truss bridge stand out and get noticed. The Broadway Bridge in St. Peter, MN, is an excellent example of this paint scheme:
Although I wouldn't personally paint a smaller truss bridge Black......I think the larger "majestic" spans like this one look good in Black. I do like that they highlighted the plaque trim and lettering in Gold. I wish they would do that with the plaques on the Laughery Creek Bridge.
Waco did a great job of rehabilitating this bridge in 2010. The entire bridge was covered in a giant tent while the paint work was taking place. I just noticed yesterday that they also replaced the road deck with new concrete.
Beautiful!
Thx for the pics Scott!
The Washington Avenue bridge in Waco, TX is closed until sometime in 2010 for a complete renovation.
This page's URL is http://bridgehunter.com/tx/mclennan/washington-avenue/
I spoke with a Waco official back when the bridge was still under the tent about what color they were going to paint it. It had always been silver as far back as I could remember. He said it would be painted black as that was the original color when it was built. It has a dramatic look to it since everything around it is green, blue, white etc.