Abandoned bridge I found in Wagoner County, Oklahoma

[bugo]

I was exploring Google Maps one night, following streams looking for bridges. I found what appeared to be a truss bridge over an old channel of the Verdigris River south of Inola in rural Wagoner County, Oklahoma. I went and checked it out a few days ago and sure enough, there's a truss bridge there. It's a huge bridge and is much higher above the ground than I expected for it to be. It is made of what appears to be a Parker through truss main span flanked by Pratt pony truss approach spans on each end of the bridge. The old river channel has very little water in it, and there is a small culvert crossing the water as well as a ford between the old bridge and the culvert. The wooden deck of the bridge is almost completely gone other than a few boards here and there, and the bridge looks quite rickety although it is probably much more stable than it looks. This bridge was unknown to the bridge community, and until I added it it didn't have an article on bridgehunter.com. It is rare these days to find an old bridge that is not listed on bridgehunter.com and it was quite a rush when the old bridge first came into view. It is on what is now a very minor county road (It might even be a private road, although I didn't see any private road or no trespassing signs) that dead ends in a field. I've done some research and on all the maps that I have found back into the 1930s, this was shown as a minor dead end road. It was obviously a major crossing at one time. It is pin connected, and appears to have been built prior to 1920. I don't know if the bridge was originally erected at another location and was moved here or if this is the original location. The bridge piers are steel lally columns filled with concrete, which makes me believe that it was built in this location prior to 1920. I have searched high and low online and I cannot find any information whatsoever about this bridge. If anybody has any information it would be much appreciated. I may have to drive over to Wagoner and do some research there. This is an impressive bridge and was right under my nose but I had no idea it was here, and the bridge community was unaware of its existence as well. Since I "discovered" it I expect for more pictures of it to show up on bridgehunter.com and on Facebook and other social media sites. It is rare to find an old bridge that nobody knows about these days with the internet and social media. It is quite a find.

Here is the bridgehunter.com entry for the bridge which I added a few hours after I photographed the bridge:

http://bridgehunter.com/ok/wagoner/bh80713/

[bugo]

I still haven't uncovered any information on this bridge. Are there any archives in Wagoner, perhaps at the library? This bridge is huge and must have been a major crossing at one time.

Nexus 5X

[LaVitaEBella]

Looks like they failed to finish this bridge, I wonder how much budget has been wasted and why they stop on building it completely.

[bugo]

What makes you think that the bridge was never completed?

[Tom958]

Good work! Thanks! 

[bugo]

It makes you wonder how many abandoned bridges are out there that haven't been "discovered" and aren't listed on bridgehunter or any of the other sites. This bridge is about 1/4 mile from a major county road. It was hiding in plain sight.

[sparker]

If as you say the bridge was sitting quite a bit higher than the adjacent ground, it may indicate that the now-gone approaches were a berm -- which would further indicate it was a railroad bridge on a now-abandoned ROW.  Wagoner was a transfer point from the old Missouri Pacific main line extending northwest out of Van Buren, AR via Wagoner and Claremore; that town was where it interchanged with the "Muskogee Lines", which were three interconnected regional rail lines (Kansas, Oklahoma, and Gulf; Midland Valley, and Oklahoma City-Ada-Atoka).  KO&G was the main "trunk" of that group, extending south from Kansas all the way to Texas; a map can be found at:

        www.abandonedrails.com/Kansas_Oklahoma_and_Gulf_Railroad

The map indicates that KO&G had at one point multiple lines in and around Wagoner; this bridge could well be part of one of those alignments.  Parker trusses were common on the Muskogee Lines, as they were less expensive to construct compared with most box truss designs (and, if anything, the management of those lines were said to be "penny-pinchers").  And seeing as how Wagoner is in an area where flooding is certainly not unknown, there's a possibility that the berm was washed away at some point, with the line being subsequently relocated to a less flood-prone location -- but the bridge remained until, likely, at some point someone "salvaged" the steel from the deck.  Of course, all this is speculation -- but when Wagoner was mentioned, it rang a bit of a bell with me.  Do feel free to continue to check out all archival info -- but be sure to include the annals of the Muskogee Lines in the process; they might well be relevant to the search for bridge info. 

[bugo]

It' was definitely not a rail bridge. Railroad trusses are almost always made of thicker beams and this bridge is too delicate to be a rail bridge. I've seen maps that show a road crossing at this location.

[bugo]

This bridge is in Wagoner County but it is closer to Inola than it is to Wagoner. The nearest named place is the unincorporated community of Neodesha. it

[inkyatari]

Looking at Google maps, I noticed a path through the trees to the NE...

https://goo.gl/maps/5582dCk7QqR2

I wonder if this was a previous road or railroad to the bridge, as it looks like it lines up almost perfectly.

[bugo]

It definitely was not a railroad bridge. It isn't heavy enough.

[csw]

I'd agree that it's not a railroad bridge for previously mentioned reasons and because that old "approach" has too tight a turn radius for rail. My guess would be they ran out of funding for either the bridge or the road, left it there, and when they finally did build the county road, the existing bridge was in too bad shape to use or would've cost more to finish than the concrete bridge that now exists.

[NE2]

from http://catalog.archives.gov/id/5836456
The S means it was a steel truss bridge in 1936.