A century-plus-old pony truss bridge in Carroll County has reached the end of its useful life. Its birth was one of the inspirations for standardization in Iowa construction.
KCIM-AM reports that the Carroll County supervisors plan to replace the Storm Creek bridge on Phoenix Avenue between Carroll and Lidderdale this fiscal year. The supervisors estimate the cost at $465,000, a jump from their last similar project. It cost about $2000 to build in 1913.
This was in the Carroll County supervisors’ minutes of December 27, 1912, printed in the Carroll Times on January 31, 1913: “After examining the bids on file the Board on motion awarded the contract of furnishing all material and construction of both wood and steel bridges for the year 1913 to the Standard Bridge Co., of Omaha, this being the lowest bidder as per plans and specifications on file in the auditor’s office.” One of the other bidders was the Marsh Engineering Co., known for its concrete arch bridges.
This bridge is significant enough that the Iowa DOT has a page about it, which provided a clue to finding the passage above. The page goes into detail about the bridge’s significance, and here’s a key passage: “The plans submitted to Carroll County in the spring of 1913 represented the prototypes for ISHC’s pony trusses: experimental designs that soon became the basis for the ISHC X-Series standards.” Pony truss bridges bloomed all across the state over the next 30 years, and this one helped lead the way.
The bridge contract had one non-highway consequence: a marriage. Miss Florence Marean, “a wide awake and ambitious young lady [who] will make good in any community in which she desires,” married the foreman of the bridge builders. “He is working for the Standard Bridge Company putting in bridges over the big ditch in the Storm Creek drain.” They were expected to settle in Nebraska, the Carroll Times said on October 2, 1913.