The beautiful Pleasanton Road bridge over the Medina River was an engineering marvel when it opened in 1910. In the mid-1920s it was part of the newly-designated US Highway 281. By the 1940s, US 281 was realigned a mile east of this location, and the former US 281 went back to being plain old Pleasanton Road.
The bridge remained in service for many more decades, but by the 1970s its narrow width (only 18.2 feet) made it very dangerous for the high-speed 2-way traffic that traveled over it.
The bridge was slated for bypass and closure in the 1970s, when a new nondescript concrete bridge was built 50 yards east of the old Pleasanton Road alignment. Interestingly, a 1918 Daughters of the American Revolution El Camino Real/Old San Antonio Road marker had been placed at the south end of the Medina River bridge in 1918. In 1970, when the bridge closed and the road moved over, that DAR marker became a historical addition to a homeowner's back yard.
The concrete bridge over the Medina River is one of the earliest concrete bridges in Texas. See the Library of Congress "Medina River Bridge, Spanning Medina River at Pleasanton Road, San Antonio, Bexar County, TX": (
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"Significance: This 303'-0"-long, four-span reinforced concrete arch bridge over the Medina River is one of the earliest documented concrete arch bridges in Texas. . . .
- Building/structure dates: 1910 Initial Construction"
The 1930s route of Pleasanton road passed in front of a large parcel of land at 16030 Pleasanton Road. At the time Pleasanton road ran parallel to the RR tracks, except for a short section at the south end of the Medina River bridge, where the road curved away from the RR tracks for a few hundred feet, before straightening out and heading southwards. Source: 1926 Bexar County Highway map.
When Pleasanton Road crossed the Medina River, it followed the highway right-ofway, and did not bisect a large parcel of land that extended from the east side of Pleasanton Road eastward. At some point before 1970, this intact parcel of land was purchased by Enrique Ortega, who still owns it in 2018.
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The land with the home on it was "islanded" in the 1970s, when the obsolete and increasingly dangerous 1910 Medina River bridge had toi be replaced by a modern concrete highway bridge. Pleasanton Road was realigned 50 yards to the east, and bisected the Ortega parcel, leaving the home one one side of Pleasanton Road,and undeveloped ranchland in the other. See: (
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"HISTORIC AMERICAN ENGINEERING RECORD
MEDINA RIVER BRIDGE
HAER No.TX-52
Location: Spanning Medina River at Old Pleasanton Road, San
Antonio vicinity, Bexar County, Texas.
Date of Construction: 1910
Designer: Terrell Bartlett, Inc., San Antonio, Texas.
Builder: H. B. Thompson and Company, Birmingham, Alabama..
Present Owner: Bexar County
Present Use: Out of Service.
Significance: This 303'-0"-long, four-span reinforced concrete arch bridge over the Medina River is one of the earliest documented concrete arch bridges in Texas. The bridge features open spandrels and two sets of ribs, and is probably the first bridge in Texas to feature this combination of material-saving devices. It was designed by the young engineer Terrell Bartlett, who would later earn commissions for engineering projects throughout the state. By the time of his death in 1962, Bartlett had become one of the state's most prolific engineers.
Historian: J. Philip Gruen, August 1996.
Project Information: This document was prepared as part of the Texas Historic Bridges Recording Project performed during the summer of 1996 by the Historic American Engineering Record (HAER). The project was co-sponsored by the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT).
Introduction
In 1910, when the four-span, four-arch reinforced concrete Medina River Bridge opened to traffic along a county road in Bexar County, Texas, just south of San Antonio, the use of reinforced concrete for roadway bridges in the U.S. was still in its formative stages. In the state of Texas, reinforced concrete bridge construction was still in its embryonic stage.
Today, many concrete arch bridges are among the best-known and most important bridges in Texas. But the completion of a concrete arch bridge over the Medina River marked one of the initial uses of reinforced concrete arches for a Texas bridge design, the first time a Texas bridge featured parallel sets of concrete ribs, and the first time a Texas bridge featured both concrete ribs and open-spandrel arches. The Medina River Bridge is also an excellent example of the work of Terrell Bartlett, a San Antonio native whose busy and lengthy career established him among the state's most prominent engineers.
Development of San Antonio
The bridge spans the Medina River, just past its confluence with Leon Creek, in a principally agricultural area of Bexar County. Once situated along Pleasanton Road approximately 3.9 miles south of Interstate 410 and twelve miles south of downtown San Antonio, the bridge has been bypassed by a new concrete structure and now spans the river between this and a wooden trestle for the Missouri Pacific Railroad. . .
The development of new infrastructure also attempted to maintain pace with the population growth and the building industry. With automobiles gaining in popularity by 1910, the paving of new roadways became essential. By the mid-1920s, a visitor's guide to San Antonio boasted that "only one other county has greater paved road mileage than Bexar," adding that nineteen "hard-surfaced" highways radiate from the city from which the motorist "speeds away to enchanting picnic spots, to quaint villages in the hills or rich farmlands along the rivers." Before the construction of Interstates 35 and 37 and U.S. Route 281, Pleasanton Road was one of four principal roads leading south and southwest out of San Antonio.
It is likely that the Medina River Bridge, as part of one of these newly paved roads outside the city, was needed initially to aid the transport of agricultural products and people to and from the towns of Cassin, Buena Vista, Losoya, Leming, and Pleasanton to the railroad depots in San Antonio. Once the railroad extended south to Pleasanton by 1912, the bridge made it convenient for farmers to access the flag stop at Cassin. It may have also eased the movement of tourists to the various spots of interest in the county. Prior to its construction, people simply forded the river whatever way they could in order to move across.
"Because its 18'-2"-wide roadway was initially designed for two lanes of traffic, the bridge by the 1970s had long since been able to comfortably handle passing vehicles. . . . The bridge eventually closed to traffic, and a new concrete girder bridge meeting current safety regulations bypassed the old bridge to its east. . ."
The 1970s Pleasanton Road realignment was routed to the east of the house, bisecting the larger parcel. The right of way for Pleasanton's western alignment was abandoned and traded to Ortega at a nominal cost in exchange for right of way to the east of his home for the new alignment. . . .
Construction began on or around February 5, 1910. In the early spring, the flow of the Medina River had become unusually fierce due to heavy rains, and work was suspended on the bridge for as long as a week or ten days at a time. By July 4, 1910, the bridge was still very much under construction, although it should have been finished according to the stipulations of the contract. A county engineer working on the project at the time said it would be completed "sometime" in September 1910. It was not until January 24, 1911, however, that the Bexar County Commissioners made their final inspection, so it can only be definitively determined that the bridge opened to traffic between late July 1910, and late January 1911.18 Upon completion, this bridge became the first permanent span over the river at this location. . . .
Description
The 303'-0"-long four-span structure consists of a central pier and two adjacent abutments supporting two 110'-0"-span two-ribbed arches, with 29'-0"-span arches on either end terminating in earth-fill approach abutments. The main abutments and piers are made of concrete mortar embedded with large rubble stones resting on wooden piles driven vertically to bedrock. The pilings for the approach abutments are 20'-0" long, and taper from 18" in diameter to 8" at the lower end. The parts of the superstructure (including the spandrels, floor system, and railings) are also made of concrete, poured over standard twisted square medium steel bars with ultimate tensile strength from sixty to seventy thousand pounds per square inch. The arches feature open-spandrel construction. The wedge-shaped tops of the spandrels extend outward slightly to the edge of the roadway. These, in turn, support a reinforced slab floor system and a two-lane, 18'-2"-wide roadway on a 19'-5" deck flanked by tall concrete railings with block patterning on the outside. . . .
In 1910 it was revolutionary to build a reinforced concrete bridge of any design in Bexar County — let alone with open spandrels and ribs — and the construction ofthe Medina River Bridge may have spurred an acceptance of this material for bridges county-wide . . .
Conclusion
While Austin's heavily trafficked Congress Avenue Bridge merited upkeep and a major reconstruction over the years, the considerably lesser-traveled Medina River Bridge began a slow and seemingly irreversible period of decline. Because its 18'-2"-wide roadway was initially designed for two lanes of traffic, the bridge by the 1970s had long since been able to comfortably handle passing vehicles. In 1973, San Antonio Light columnist Joe P. Faulkner included the bridge among those which were "inviting death" along Bexar County roadways. A photograph reproduced with this article showed visible cracks in the railing and the roadway. The bridge eventually closed to traffic, and a new concrete girder bridge meeting current safety regulations bypassed the old bridge to its east. Today, loose iron screws extend from the railing and moss, weeds, trees, grow on and around the cracking roadway. Now a shadow of its former self, the Medina River Bridge is gradually being swallowed by the natural environment in which it was built.
Yet the Medina River Bridge is integral, if not seminal, to the emergence of a concrete arch bridge tradition within Texas. Its combined use of reinforced concrete, open spandrels, and parallel sets ofribs provided a regional breakthrough. It was also probably one of the first major commissions for engineer Terrell Bartlett, whose varied and prolific career established him among the preeminent engineers in the history of Texas. In an age when so many older, out-of-service bridges of architectural and engineering merit are often bypassed by the most economical — and generally most mundane — means, the Medina River Bridge represents the early stages of reinforced concrete arched bridge design in Texas and the United States, when aesthetic considerations were still linked with those of structure and function."