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Red River Bridge  1908 Daily Oklahoman January 29, 1913 RED RIVER BRIDGE CONTRACT IS LET Steel Wagon and Interurban Bridge to Connect Oklahoma and Texas Denison, Texas, Jan 28 - (Special) - Another steel wagon and interurban bridge is to connect Texas and Oklahoma over Red River within a few months. The Red River Bridge Company of Denison has awarded to the Midland Bridge company of Kansas City, Mo., a contract for the construction of a modern bridge over Red river four miles north of Denison. The contract price is $50,000 and the bridge is to be completed and in operation not later than October 1, 1913. The bridge is to be built on the site the one washed away in the spring of 1908, during the flood. The approaches from both sides and one pier of the old bridge will be utilized. All of the stock in the new company is held by Denison parties. In addition to passing wagons, autos, etc., the structure will be built with the view of allowing fifty-ton interurban cars to be operated over it. The plans for the bridge were submitted to the engineers of the Texas Traction company and J.F. Strickland, the builder of several other lines in Texas, and were approved as being sufficiently strong to take care of heavy electric cars. The building of this bridge will also close up another gap in the proposed "Canada-to-the-Gulf highway", through Oklahoma into Texas and thence to the gulf of Mexico. The builders of the bridge have set aside a fund of $5,000 for the improvement of several miles of sandy roads on the Oklahoma side of the river. It will be macadamized and several small bridges over minor streams erected. The bridge company will begin operations this week that the piers may be built previous to the high waters of the spring and early summer. The Sunday Gazetteer Sunday, November 1, 1891 pg. 4 IT IS FINISHED The Denison and Red River Wagon Bridge Thrown Open to the Public The announcement that the Denison and Red River wagon bridge had been finished and that it was ready for public travel was made in the local evening papers yesterday, and although the announcement created no special enthusiasm the even, with reference to Denison, is probably second in importance only to that of the coming of the Missouri, Kansas and Texas railway. This is saying a good deal in the shadow, so to speak, of the recent boom, but the bridge will speak for itself and will not need a flow of rhetoric, in the form of pretty pen pictures, to extol its merits. In the year 1875, and at an enormous expense, Mr. Frank Colbert erected a handsome wagon bridge across the river at the site of the new structure, but owing to the giving away of the heavy railway bridge during a freshet in the spring of 1876, it went down the stream, and until last year no especial endeavor was made toward its rebuilding. The new bridge company consists of Frank Colbert, W.B. and J.T. Munson, J.B. McDougall, J.C. Feild, and Samuel Star. Mr. Colbert is president, W.B. Munson is vice-president, and J.C. Feild is secretary and treasurer, with a capital of $50,000 paid up stock. The contract was awarded the Missouri Valley Bridge Company of Leavenworth, Kansas and although the work has been prolonged from time to time and the completion is several months later than the date specified in the contract, the thoroughness of the work is ample compensation for the short delay. The bridge is a model of modern truss architecture and reflects great credit not only to the company that did the building, but upon Mr. S.W. Lea, the architect, who did the planing and who furnished the specifications. It has 2 spans, each 215 feet in length over the main part of the river and a south shore span 140 feet in length - a total length for the bridge pier of 570 feet, or about the same length as the large ocean steamships of the latest construction. Then the approaches on each side are about 30 feet in length. The width of the driveway is 18 feet, the height above extreme high water is some 40 feet. One of the center piers and the south shore pier are made of the best boiler steel, cylindrical in shape, and are filled with concrete of the best quality. The north shore pier, or more properly speaking, abutment, is made of curbstone, a blue limestone of fine quality from a recently discovered ledge on the Choctaw side near Hon. Frank Colbert's. The south center pier is constructed of cut limestone from another locality, good solid material, but hardly as good as the territory stone. It is, in fact, one of the pieces of the old Colbert bridge. The new bridge has a capacity of 1200 pounds per lineal foot of moving load and was constructed with a view of withstanding the pressure of high winds and water, as well as heavy teams and probably herds of moving stock. The company is incorporated under laws of Texas and is also authorized by act of Congress to build and maintain a wagon bridge across Red River at that point. The schedule of tolls will be moderate, and special commutation tickets will be sold to merchants and others in Denison who may wish to increase their trade with the people of the Indian Territory. The road leading from the city to the bridge has received a large amount of attention, and the work of grading and macadamizing will be continued until it is first class in every respect. It will be remembered that the county convicts were at work on the grade in the bottom four or five months and their work has been largely supplements by money expended by the bridge company.  1940   Red River Bridge War Waterways Susan Hawkins © 2024 If you find any of Grayson County TXGenWeb links inoperable, please send me a message. |