Hutsonville Bridge

Hutsonville Bridge
Looking southwest from the Indiana side
Coordinates	39°06′36″N 87°39′18″W
Carries	Former Illinois Route 135/Indiana State Road 154
Crosses	Wabash River
Locale	Hutsonville, Crawford County, Illinois/Graysville, Sullivan County, Indiana
Maintained by	Indiana Department of Transportation (former)
Characteristics
Design	Self-anchored suspension bridge
Total length	1,002 feet (305 m)
Width	2 lanes, 20 feet (6.1 m)
Height	70.2 feet (21.4 m)
Longest span	350 feet (110 m)
History
Opened	November 18, 1939
Closed	1988
Statistics
Daily traffic	vehicular, unknown
Location

Self-anchorage detail, bridge deck view

The Hutsonville Bridge or Sullivan-Hutsonville Bridge connecting Crawford County, Illinois, and Sullivan County, Indiana, over the Wabash River, built 1939 and replaced in 1988, was an example of the relatively rare self-anchored suspension bridge type. It was designed by Robinson & Steinman, with R. V. Milbank as the resident chief engineer, and constructed by Wisconsin Bridge and Iron Company as general contractor and Vincennes Steel Corporation as steel fabricators and Charles J. Glasgow as a subcontractor.

Note the use of multiple independent cables, rather than a large single interleaved and sheathed cable, as is typical for larger suspension bridges, or eyebars, often used in smaller bridges such as the Pittsburgh Seventh Street Bridge, also self-anchored.

Although the bridge was determined eligible for inclusion in the National Register of Historic Places in 1987 due to the rarity of its type, the bridge was replaced in 1988 and demolished, with the replacement bridge being made of concrete and supported by pillars instead of suspension.

Self-anchorage detail, outside view

The replacement bridge, looking from Hutsonville toward Indiana

According to the Bridgemeister.com site referenced below, the demolition was controversial. The site in turn cites the September 26, 1988, issue of the Springfield, Illinois, State Journal-Register that the company to which the $100,000 demolition contract was let offered to turn the money over to save the bridge. The locals agreed, but the company's Chief Engineer Stephen Schneider was quoted, "I think Indiana really wants to tear it down. They've been ... forced to send inspectors out every two weeks. I think they just want the headache gone." Gary Abell, spokesman for the Indiana Dept. Of Highways said its design is "not one of the best. It works in theory, but not in practice. This is like trying to save a mistake." In 2002, an unnamed INDOT representative was cited as saying, "I am not sure why you are interested in that bridge, but from our standpoint, it was a very poorly designed bridge that had many problems from the day that it was completed, until it was brought down."

See also

• List of bridges documented by the Historic American Engineering Record in Illinois
• List of bridges documented by the Historic American Engineering Record in Indiana

External links

• Hutsonville Bridge entry at Bridges.midwestplaces.org
• Historic American Engineering Record (HAER) No. IN-59, "Hutsonville Bridge", 75 photos, 52 data pages, 4 photo caption pages
• Sullivan-Hutsonville Bridge at Structurae
• Hutsonville Bridge entry at Bridgemeister.com

Further reading

• Ratigan, W. (1959). Highways Over Broad Waters. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. ASIN B0007IY0OC.
• Cooper, James L. (1987). Iron Monuments to Distant Posterity: Indiana's Metal Bridges, 1870-1930.