Bennington Bridge

I appreciate the pictures you posted of the bridge before we took it down, as I am a resident of Bennington, I just got lucky and was assigned to this project. I hated to see it go, but the arch trusses and deck were heavy enough they were crushing the piercaps and the column had major wear and defiencies when I excavated to the bottom of the footers to remove them. My job is bridge removal and replacement, but I love old bridges.

Oops, sorry. In the previous post, I should have said Minneapolis not Manhattan KS.

I have been "collecting" bridges of this type for about 14 years. This one was really worth saving for alot of reasons. In addition to being in good shape for the amount of traffic, it was the only one I've observed in Kansas that had the stream name in the cross ties rather than the usual date of construction. In addition, it still had signage associated with it that showed it to have been on the 1930s alignment of US-81. Further north of Bennington the older 1920s route of US-81 was still marked by unique triangular cross section mile markers on the (barely) two-lane brick route winding from Bennington into Manhattan, KS. I will be forwarding some pictures of those features soon.

I am somewhat surprised that this bridge was demolished, particularly as it was on a rural road that did not carry a large amount of traffic. This was one of the best examples of a single span Rainbow Arch bridge in Kansas and possible in the USA. It was also a rare example of a Rainbow Arch with 4 buttresses over the roadway. I am glad that I took several pictures of this bridge over the last few years.

I am helping knock down this bridge, and took several pictures of when the main arch trusses dropped. If anyone is interested in the pics email me.