Even on the east side of Indiana, the Wabash River was wide enough that towns thought twice about building bridges across it. The multiple postcards made of the twin bridges is an indication of how important they were to the community. To this day, there is only one road bridge. Per Rick's comment below, the road bridge on the right (East side) was built in 1887 and the rail bridge is a 1902 interurban bridge.
(Note to self: the album these photos are from contained several covered bridges.)
Looking North:
The interurban right-of-way is now a paved trail north of downtown to Monroe Street.
Looking South:
The iron bridge on the right replaced a covered bridge in 1887. The iron bridge on the left was added in 1902 for the new interurban system connecting Bluffton with Fort Wayne. The view is looking north on today's state highway 1. The iron bridge on the right was replaced in 1934 with today's Crosbie Bridge (which has been updated and rebuilt). The worst, deadliest interurban accident in U.S. history occurred 5 miles north of this location in Kingsland, IN. on September 21, 1910 when an over-crowded train car of fairgoers going to the Allen County Fair were struck head-on by another train car killing 42 people. -Rick Stabler
ReplyDeleteThanks for the information. I rewrote the first paragraph to correct it and changed the label from rrNKP to rrInterurban. And I added the dates to the title. I was going to add Bridge Hunter info, but the server is responding with 500's today.
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