1916 Pipeline/US-66: (
Archived Bridge Hunter;
Bridge Hunter; no Historic Bridges;
Satellite)
1916 Pipeline/US-66 Bridge
This bridge still exists because it now carries a pipeline. You can see the pipeline come out of the hill on the far side.
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| Photo by Craig Philpott via BridgeHunter_1916 |
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Postcard via BridgeHunter_1916
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| Postcard via BridgeHunter_1916 |
Route 66 Postcards posted two photos with the comment:
Here are two photos of the National Old Trails Road Bridge, the steel through‑arch span built specifically for the National Old Trails Road to cross the Colorado River between Topock, Arizona, and California. The first photo is the bridge under construction in 1915 and second of it completed. The bridge still spans the river but now carries pipelines instead of cars and trucks. It served as the Route 66 river crossing from 1926 to 1947. And it appears the film adaptation of The Grapes of Wrath with Henry Fonda. The Kansas City Structural Steel Company built it in 1915 -'16 using a novel cantilever‑hoisting method: the two 180‑ton arch halves were assembled horizontally on the riverbanks and then swung upright using a ball‑and‑socket hinge. This avoided the need for falsework in the deep Colorado River channel.
The first photo is courtesy of Jim Hinckley.
Posted by Wally Potter, Route 66 Postcards.
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Art Scheski commented on the above post
Here's a postcard showing its dedication. |
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Dave Anderson commented on the above post
We got this early morning view a couple of years ago while driving Route 66. Great time!! |
1890,1947 US-66/Santa Fe
"Originally built for ATSF railroad use. In 1947, ATSF built a
new bridge for trains, this bridge was converted for highway use, and US Route 66 was rerouted from the Old Trails Arch Bridge to this bridge. In 1966, both US 66 and this bridge were replaced by Interstate 40. The bridge was not dismantled until 1978." [ArchievedBridgeHunter_1890]
Back from its railroad days.
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| BridgeHunter_1890 |
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| Postcard via BridgeHunter_1890 |
Bridge Hunter calls the design a through cantilevered bridge. I wondered about that because the above images have a center pier. But note that there is no center pier in this image.
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| BridgeHunter_1890 |
This is the only other image of the bridge that I saw that did not have the middle pier. So I guess the center pier was added after it was built. Was that part of the 1947 conversion to a highway bridge?
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| Postcard via BridgeHunter_1890 |
Pipeline Bridge with Triangular Towers
Note the "arms" that stick out from the base of the towers. They hold additional cables for lateral support.
Pipeline Bridge with Rectangular Towers
This bridge hangs the pipeline from two cables that curve inward to provide the lateral stability.
US-66 Route
I was surprised that US-66 crossed the Colorado River so farth south of Kingman, AZ, and Needles, CA. So I got these topo maps to study the route between those two cities. But they gave me another surprise. The bottom map (Needles Quadrant) shows US-66 going North from Topock and then east through the Black Mountains to Kingman. The top map (Kingman Quadrant) shows US-66 going South from Kingman along the Santa Fe, but then it stops when it reaches the Needles Quadrant! I've never seen a road discontinuity like that before in the topo maps.
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| 1954 Kingman and Needles Quads @ 250,000 |
A US-66 map shows that the Kingman Quadrant is wrong and that US-66 did go through the Black Mountains. I-40 followed the Santa Fe route instead of the US-66 route between Kingman and Topock.
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