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.
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.
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.