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Texas: East, North Central, Panhandle and South Plains and West » North Central Texas » Fort Griffin to Comanche » Fort Griffin and Griffin (Shackelford County) » Fort Griffin Brazos River Bridge

Fort Griffin Brazos River Bridge

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1885. FM 188, 1.5 miles northeast of Fort Griffin State Historic Park

After reviewing plans from several bridge manufacturing companies, the Shackelford County Commissioners selected the King Iron Bridge Company of Cleveland to erect a pin-connected, Pratt through-truss bridge with a span of 110 feet and approach trestles. The bridge is supported on masonry piers, has a wooden roadbed, and is still in light automobile use. It is one of many bridges built throughout the state as road transportation improved to provide access to the expanding railroad network.

Another notable bridge carries U.S. 283 over the river, immediately north of the Fort Griffin State Historic Site. Built in 1929, the bridge is the earliest, and only, surviving example of a standard bridge design used by the Texas Highway Department for a Parker through-truss bridge. The steel 150-foot span is carried on reinforced concrete piers. Farther east on the Clear Fork (County Road 179, off U.S. 283, 16 miles north of Albany) is the Woodson Suspension Bridge, one of seven surviving early suspension bridges in Texas. Built in 1896 by the Flinn-Moyer Bridge Company of Weatherford, it consists of two large stone abutments that carry two tapered concrete towers, over which hang compound steel wire suspension cables for a span of 140 feet. Built as tripod steel shapes, the towers were encased in concrete in 1926 by the Austin Bridge Company.

Writing Credits

Author: 
Gerald Moorhead et al.
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Data

What's Nearby

Fort Griffin State Historic Site

Citation

Gerald Moorhead et al., "Fort Griffin Brazos River Bridge", SAH Archipedia, eds. Gabrielle Esperdy and Karen Kingsley, Charlottesville: UVaP, 2012—, http://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/TX-02-FC2.

Print Source

Buildings of Texas

Buildings of Texas: East, North Central, Panhandle and South Plains, and West, Gerald Moorhead and contributors. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2019, 284-285.

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