Old Bridges - Eel River, Owen Cty, Indiana

Scattered over the midwest are these wonderful old metal bridge structures.    Turns out that quite a few of these old beauties were build by the Vincennes Bridge Company of Vincennes, Indiana.    The company was started by three schoolteachers in 1898.  By 1920, they were building 1200 bridges a year.

Here is a short Wiki on them.

What is really awesome is that someone has been photo-documenting these bridges.   Pop over to Bridgehunter.com to see a list of the Vincennes Co. bridges they have documented.   What a treasure!

This type of bridge is called a through truss bridge.   I love all those straight lines, all that beautiful geometry.   Plus, the rust against the blue sky makes me happy.

This bridge is visible from highway 157, crossing the Eel River, just north of Worthington, just inside the Owen County Line.

Just to top off the magic, the old signs are still in place.    Adorned with bullet holes.   Of course.  


The signs are old.   They say: 

1918
Built By
Vincennes Bridge Co
Vincennes, Ind
Jesse H. Johnson
James Andrew         } Com'rs
T H Ground
Samuel M. Rover   Auditor
Lou Drescher    Engineer


For a better view of one of the other signs on this bridge, go here.

If you click the pic at the top, you'll see that you get a twofer with that view. 

There's another bridge visible through this bridge.  

Here's what's on the other side.

It's a train trestle, running parallel to this bridge. 

Which means that there are three bridges over the Eel River at this spot: The new concrete bridge, the old trestle bridge and the old train bridge.

All are still in use.