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| HAER WIS,38-WAG,1--1 1. VIEW OF NORTHWEST ELEVATION - Wisconsin-Michigan Railroad Bridge, Spanning Menominee River, on County Trunk Highway "JJ", Wagner, Marinette County, WI |
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| Ghost Rails and Forgotten Highways posted Two Counties Bought the Koss Bridge for $1,250 and Drove Across It for 53 Years The Wisconsin & Michigan ran its last train on June 30, 1938. Within weeks, Marinette County on the Wisconsin bank and Menominee County on the Michigan bank had split the cost of the railroad's Menominee River crossing - $625 apiece - and opened it to automobiles. The bridge was already a replacement when they bought it. F. S. Brown & Company of Chicago finished a crossing at this spot in March 1894, and a spring logjam undermined its foundation the following month; the structure in this photograph went up in its place by early November of the same year. Two pin-connected Pratt through trusses, one 162 feet and one 221 feet, built so the pine coming out of the interior would not have to be rafted down the river. HAER's surveyors noted the longer span may be among the longest Pratt through trusses in Wisconsin and Michigan. The town at the north end, Koss, was named for the railroad's auditor and held close to 2,000 people before fire took it in 1900. The railroad itself went into receivership in 1912 and spent its final decades as roughly 62 miles of connecting link between bigger carriers, hauling lumber and iron ore between Bagley Junction and Iron Mountain. What the counties got for their money was a single-lane crossing tying County Trunk JJ on the Wisconsin side to Shakey Lakes Road on the Michigan side - a bridge built for logging trains, carrying farm trucks and mail cars across a state line. It held that job until 1991, when a new bridge replaced it and the trusses came down. The Historic American Engineering Record photographed it in that second life, which is the only reason you can still look at it. Fifty-three years of road service out of a railroad that couldn't survive its own timber running out is a better return than most infrastructure ever gets. Has anyone here crossed the old single-lane bridge at Koss before the 1991 replacement went in, or know of another railroad bridge in your county that ended up carrying cars? 5. VIEW OF WEST SIDE OF LONG TRUSS |
"Significance: The Wisconsin & Michigan Railroad Bridge is an example of a pin-connected Pratt through truss, a standard design used during the late 19th century. The bridge is unusual, in that it consists of two unequal spans, one measuring 162 feet and the other 221 feet. The long span may be one of the longest Pratt through trusses in Wisconsin and Michigan. In addition, the bridge is one of only a few extant trusses built before 1900. The history of the railroad bridge documents the development and decline of the logging industry in northern Wisconsin and Michigan." [HAER_data]
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| HAER WIS,38-WAG,1--9 9. VIEW OF NORTH END OF LONG TRUSS |
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| Minor Images, Nov 2021 |
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