Collapse of 6th Avenue Bridge over Des Moines River in Des Moines, IA

(no Bridge Hunter; no Historic Bridges; Satellite)

I grew up in Iowa posted three images with the comment:

April 17, 1965, the day the Sixth Avenue bridge over the Des Moines River collapsed. Many pictures!

Des Moines, Iowa.

Recent discussions of the country’s failing infrastructure might lead some long-time Des Moines residents to remember April 17, 1965, the day the Sixth Avenue bridge over the Des Moines River collapsed. Shortly after 3 P.M. that Saturday, three cars were on the bridge when the middle section, about 100 feet long and over half the width of the bridge, fell into the river.

All three drivers were able to turn around and get off the bridge safely, but telephone service was disrupted when an estimated 10,000 telephone customers lost service. Four temporary pay phones were installed, two at Second and Euclid and two at Sixth and Hickman, until phone service could be restored. The bridge had been buffeted by flood waters for about two weeks, leading to speculation that this was the cause of the collapse.

The city had previously scheduled repair work on this bridge and several others and subsequently rebuilt the Sixth Avenue, University Avenue, and Walnut Street bridges as well as the Seventh Street Viaduct. All four bridges reopened on Friday, October 14, 1966, after many months of re-routing inconvenience for citizens.

Dori Jansma: And it was a dog that saved the day to run new telephone lines across the bridge to get emergency phone lines reconnected!!

[When I tried finding the "posted" link that I forgoet to record, I found 18 photos.]

1

2

3

Comments on the above post

Dori Jansma commented on the above post

Mike Andreski: Dori Jansma And later this month [Oct 2026] the successor to NW BELL is ending wired service.

Today's bridge:

Street View, Sep 2017

OH-85 Causeway and 1931,2917 Pymatuning Dam on Shenango River near Andover, OH

Causeway: (no Bridge Hunter; no Historic Bridges; Satellite)

Dam: (Satellite)

Jackson-Township historical preservation posted
Aerial view of Pymatuning Lake and the Causeway between Espyville, PA and Andover, OH, as seen from the Pennsylvania side.  The 2 1/2 mile Causeway is one of the most popular fishing areas of the lake.

The comment about it being a fishing area confused me until I saw the fishing area.

Satellite

You need an aerial view to see the whole thing. This shows that the crossing is mostly dirt (an embankment). I'm guessing that the bridge part uses concrete girders.

Street View, Aug 2024

The causeway crosses the Pymatuning Lake created by the Pymatuning Dam. The emergency spillway is on the right descending bank.

Satellite

"Size: Covers over 17,000 acres, making it the largest lake in Pennsylvania and the largest inland body of water in Ohio." [Google search AI results]

Gatehouse:

Street View, Jul 2024

Spillway: I like the stone construction.

Street View, Jul 2024

hagley, Pymatuning Dam (J. Victor Dallin Aerial Survey collection (Accession 1970.200)). 1937-03-29. 1970200_09541. Audiovisual Collections, Hagley Museum and Library, Wilmington, DE 19807. Accessed 2026-09-28; https://digital.hagley.org/1970200_09541.

SavingPlaces

SavingPlaces
"An aerial view of the cofferdam during the gatehouse's renovation."
The outlet control works were rebuilt during 2013-17. Also, the asphalt roof was replaced with an historically correct clay tile roof. The cost was $8.8m.

1975,2024 Sister Cities Y-Bridge over Genesee River in Rochester, NY

(no Bridge Hunter; Satellite)

Looking North. From ground level, it is hard to see the third leg.

Street View, Jun 2025

Looking South.

Street View, May 2025

The bridge was dedicated in 1975 as the culmination of an urban renewal project. These two clippings from BridgesOfTheGeneseeRiver show the buildings along the river that were cleared out for the urban renewal project. The resulting Charles Carroll Plaza on the west side of the river wasn't much more than a concrete slab. As with some plazas in Chicago, this plaza demonstrated that people don't like plazas that basically look like a parking lot. Thus it, and the bridge, were renovated in 2024.

1

2

The triangle in the water was a fountain. It never did work correctly and they soon gave up on it.

Satellite

BridgesOfTheGeneseeRiver
This article also explains why the name of the plaza was changed.

Looking at the satellite image above, the new plaza has some layers. This image shows that the old plaza wasn't much more than a slab.

The plaza renovation cost $20m. The plaza is a roof for an underground parking lot. "Austin Steward was one of Rochester’s first prominent Black business owners, an entrepreneur who not only gained freedom from slavery, but opened a successful business, operated the first school for black children in Rochester, and wrote his memoir, “22 Years a Slave and 40 Years a Freeman.”" (Charles Carroll was a slave owner.) [CityOfRochester]

Google Earth, Jul 2018

So how accurate is this rendering?

CityOfRochester_project

1932 Seven Arches (Waller, Hillsboro Road) Bridge over Terre Bleue Creek near bonne Terre, MO

(Archived Bridge Hunter; Bridge Hunter; no Historic Bridges; Satellite)

James Baughn photo via BridgeHunter

John Albert Christeson Jr. posted three photos with the comment: "Seven Arches Bridge in St. Francois County Mo. The bridge is located on Hillsboro Rd. east of Bonne Terre Mo. The bridge is about 100 yds off of Mo. Highway K."

Mitchell Thurman: i grew up near here. this is where i learned to fish.

it has a plaque. ruth e waller saw this bridge built so that kids could go to school during winter.

Rick Wibbenmeyer: Soon to be torn down i believe.

1

1

2

3

2018 photo by John Christeson via BridgeHunter

"My grandfather, Charles Blackwell, built this bridge. At the time, a contest was held to name the bridge and my father, Earl Blackwell, won with the name Seven Stone Archway Bridge. The prize was five dollars, a richly sum for a nine year old during the depression. I visited the bridge today and was saddened to see the name Waller Bridge posted on the structure. Also, the bridge has been painted with highway yellow paint. Whoever is responsible for that should be tarred and feathered." [William Blackwell comment on ArchivedBridgeHunter]

2018 photo by John Christeson via BridgeHunter

An interesting combination of steel and concrete beams.

James Baughn photo via BridgeHunter

I-39+90+94 Bridges over Wisconsin River near Portage, WI

(no Bridge Hunter; Satellite)

I normally don't bother noting UCEB (Ugly Concrete Eyesore Bridges), but this construction video is worth noting.

After some typical drone scenes of some tandem lifts, this scene shows how they unload a beam from a truck. The end of the beam has already been lifted off its trailer and swung over to the carriage that will take it across the temporary bridge. The right crane will unhook once that end is on the carriage, and the left crane will attach to the beam. We will see the barge tilt as it takes the weight off of the carriage. Not that 12 axles are required to carry the beam on the highways.

Facebook Reel

rasmith
The bridge replacement cost $135m.

Construction began in May 2024, and it is expected to be completed in 2027. [portagewi]

511wi
"Replacing the existing I-39/90/94 Wisconsin River bridges. One new bridge will be located to the east of the existing bridges and the other will be located at approximately the same location as the existing bridges." [Are they going from 6 lanes to 12 lanes? No. See below. The bridges will handle 8 lanes after a later project adds a fourth lane in each direction to the highway.]

A satellite image caught the temporary bridge that was used to get the beams across the river. I don't know why I can't see a second crane for the tandem lifts of the beams.

Satellite

acppubs
"Nearly a quarter of the 60,000 average daily vehicles passing through the corridor are trucks. The traffic on the bridge increases dramatically — up to 75 percent during the summer months due to tourist traffic."

This photo is old enough to catch a foundation pile drill.

acppubs
"The new bridges will be 1,760 feet long, making them slightly longer than the existing bridges. They will also be wider at 80 feet. However, the bridges will remain three lanes when the project opens. Porter noted that WisDOT has a separate future project to widen the interstate to four lanes. When that occurs, the bridge will be restriped to accommodate a fourth lane."
The riverbed has a highly variable rock profile. Some of the drilled shaft foundations went down 120' without achieving the design capacity. So they had to redesign the pier foundations. They also encountered artesian (underground water) pressure around some of the drilled shafts. That required additional foundation designs. Some of the new designs meant that they had to bring in new subcontractors and equipment.
The nearby high-tension wires added another challenge.

It looks like the old bridge used steel girders. The new one uses prestressed concrete girders.

Street View, Sep 2025

Wabtec Test Track, NYC and US-20 Bridges over Sixmile Creek near Erie, PA

East Erie Commercial Railroad (Wabtec test track): (Satellite)

NYC: (Satellite)

NKP: (Satellite)

US-20: (Satellite)

US-20 Overview

The arch bridge carries the Wabtec/GE test track. On the other side of that bridge, we get a glimpse of the arch bridge of the CSX/NYC.

Street View, Apr 2024

Linda walked the Sixmile Creek from here to the South. So this is the creek view of the above scene.

Facebook Reel

After she pointed out the little waterfall and some snakes, a test train appeared on the Wabtec test track. I was surprised that Wabtec still uses the GE logo. Also, we can see clear through the NYC arch bridge.

Same Reel

The test train consisted of two blue and one BNSF locomotives.

Same Reel

After seeing a snake swimming in the creek, we get a closeup of the NYC Bridge.

Same Reel

Another view of the NYC arch because a NS/NKP train is on their bridge. It is gone in later views. The concrete girder bridge in the background is the US-20 Bridge.

Same Reel

She turned around for this shot of the NYC Bridge. The road bridge behind the test track bridge is PA-955, which is on Iroquois Ave. As Linda explains, the NYC Bridge is a double arch and we can see the gap between the arches in these NYC views.

The NYC Bridge needs some TLC. I think the date is 1909.

Same Reel

Same Reel

Linda called the NKP bridge the CSX bridge. I verified that she was wrong. When they split up Conrail, CSX got NYC. NS got NKP because of the N&W+NKP+Wabash merger.

arcgis

Linda also considers the US-20 bridge to be blah because she spent about 2 seconds on that bridge in her video.

Same Reel

These fossils are underneath the US-20 bridge.

Same Reel

1960/62 Harborcreek Quad @ 24,000

The East Erie Commercial label in the above map is still the name of the railroad that Wabtec uses to test locomotives. Linda had a few more scenes of the test train going over their bridge in her video.

A.J MIC, Apr 2023

"It takes about 25 days start to finish to build a brand new locomotive....We track test 100% of every locomotive we ship....They travel about 40 to 50 miles on the test track. We want high-speed runs and we want to do low speed run. Exercise that locomotive and all the conditions it may see out in its environment....Grand total, it varies on the model, but testing and painting takes anywhere from about 6 to 10 days." [2:14  video]