Clarkton Bridge
Facts
- Overview
- Two-span through truss bridge over Staunton River on Route 620, near Clarkton
- Location
- Halifax County, Virginia, and Charlotte County, Virginia
- Status
- Demolished in 2018
- History
- Built 1901-02 by the Virginia Bridge & Iron Co.; closed to vehicles in 1998; rehabilitated as a pedestrian bridge in 2005
- Builders
- - Austin Brothers Bridge Co. of Dallas, Texas/Atlanta, Georgia [also known as Austin Bridge Co.]
- Virginia Bridge & Iron Co. of Roanoke, Virginia [also known as Virginia Bridge Co.]
- Design
- Main spans: Two pin-connected, 8-panel Camelback Pratt through trusses
- Dimensions
-
Length of largest span: 150.0 ft.
Total length: 692.0 ft.
- Recognition
- Posted to the National Register of Historic Places on January 26, 2007
- Approximate latitude, longitude
- +36.97783, -78.89699 (decimal degrees)
36°58'40" N, 78°53'49" W (degrees°minutes'seconds") - Approximate UTM coordinates
- 17/687183/4094479 (zone/easting/northing)
- Quadrangle map:
- Nathalie
- Inventory number
- BH 33706 (Bridgehunter.com ID)
Update Log
- June 21, 2009: Updated by C Hanchey
- May 8, 2009: Updated by C Hanchey
- February 24, 2009: New photos from C Hanchey
- February 26, 2007: Posted HAER photos
Sources
- Dan Shaw
- C Hanchey - cmh2315fl [at] yahoo [dot] com
- HAER VA-108 - Clarkton Bridge, Spanning Staunton River at State Route 620, Clarkton vicinity, Charlotte, VA
Comments
Removed by VDOT 2018 .
This "preserved" bridge is being DEMOLISHED!!!! Typical Virginia nonsense.
http://www.yourgv.com/news/local_news/clarkton-bridge-s-days...
Was looking at the HAER documentation and I found that the floor beams were remodeled in 1940, at which time the Kingpost beams were added.
This bridge has recently been closed to pedestrian traffic as well.
I was in the South Boston area in the summer of 2004 when VDOT came very close to demolishing this bridge. I went for a drive one Sunday afternoon looking for the Clarkton Bridge and when I found it there was a gathering of supporters to save the bridge. I took many pictures and followed the newspapers for months to see what happened to the bridge. I'm glad to know it is still standing and I hope I can visit it again someday.
Makes since Wes.....they do look like an upside-down Kingpost truss.
Those are called "trussed beams". It is a concept similar to truss rods under old-fashioned wooden railroad cars. It looks, from the pictures, that these were added in on after the bridge was built.
This bridge has perhaps the most unusual floor beams that I have ever seen. They are what I know as "Fishbellies" but are not a solid beam.
This page's URL is http://bridgehunter.com/va/halifax/clarkton/
I grew up not far from this bridge. It was an easy way to get to my cousin's house in Charlotte County. When we were students at Virginia Tech in the 1970s, my husband and his roommate took a structures class. Their project was photographic studies of different old bridges. My father took us to this bridge on Easter 1978, and my husband took a whole series of slide photographs. Unfortunately, the professor kept all the photographs and then left VT in a few years - taking all the photographs with him.