Antelope Bridge - Destroyed by a Ghost River - Orphaned Bridges on Waymarking.com

The bridge originally spanned nearly 1000 feet and much of it still stands today. It was quite an accomplishment in its time yet it was an embarrassment almost right from the start. It was conceived in 1912 by Lamar Cobb. Bids went out in December of that year and were all rejected in favor of using prison labor. But when it became apparent the next year there was not enough labor available to build the bridge it was redesigned and put out for bids again. In May 1914 Perry Borchers was hired to build the bridge but he too was "in over his head". He began construction on June 1 1914 but soon defaulted when floods that winter destroyed the partially completed structure. Even before it was completed the bridge was washed out. It was one of many, many, washouts to come. Although it may seem as if the bridge was doomed from the very beginning, in fact it has outlasted the very river that tried to do it in!

When Brochers defaulted in early 1915 the state once again took up the project with prison laborers. On August 18th 1915 with great fan fair with hundreds in attendance the bridge was finally opened. Bands played, people came out with families for picnics, it was a grand affair! One year later it would be washed out again for yet another of many more washouts to come before the state would give up in shame and move the road and crossing to the west.

It was quite an accomplishment to build a bridge this long and to do it in concrete was very “state of the art”, almost daring. There was much local excitement soon after it had been built over how steady the bridge was as compared to its steel cousins that bounced and sometimes swayed. This one was solid as a rock. However the design engineers had made some fatal mistakes in its conception. But none of the mistakes were necessary. Even in 1914 technology and experience existed that could have saved the bridge from its demise.

For starters the substructure that held up the mammoth double 65 foot solid spans and solid concrete deck were woefully inadequate. The piers were poorly situated on thin wide spread footings rather than pilings. Easy to build on a flat river bed that often receded yes, but then when the water came it would wash away the sand under the footing as a garden hose can wash away dirt under a sidewalk. The next year they would build the footer even bigger but then just as before, the river would simply wash way even more sand from under the newly laid concrete. What was needed were pilings. They should have been used from the very start. It was not technology that was unknown. Engineers had learned to cope with such things on the Missouri river 40 years earlier. Engineers had learned to build shore embankments to guide and restrict rivers but no such things were employed here. Engineers knew the part of the river they had decided to build over was a point that was prone to flooding. They knew of other sites (like its eventual replacement in nearby Dome) that would not suffer such flooding. All lessons learned from earlier bridge's failures but not employed in Antelope. Ignoring these basics was fatal.

The year after opening in 1916 two miles of approach and grading were washed out by a flood. That flood widened the river by 300 feet to the north so in 1917 funds were appropriated by the state to put a 500 foot extension on the bridge to the north to cover the “new” path of the river. Five additional spans were put on and a timber trestle approach were built and finished in the autumn of 1918. Another flood a week after Thanksgiving 1919 destroyed 500 feet of the approach and shifted some of the concrete piers on the extension. Three months later flooding dropped another 300 feet of the trestle. Even worse the flooding moved the already compromised piers and shifted them even further downstream.

By 1921 Merrill Butler, state bridge engineer stated "The Antelope Hill Bridge is located at a point where it is impossible to control the river and keep it under the bridge at any reasonable cost. Foundation conditions are bad and a permanent extension would necessarily be long and costly with the strong possibility that the same situation would again develop in a few years." He went on to say "The foregoing, together with the apparent need for expensive repairs to two of the existing piers, should mitigate against anything except some form of temporary construction.” The deceptively placid nature of the Gila River at its normal stage had claimed yet another victim, the engineers. Becasue of the high maintenance of keeping the bridge open as part of a main highway the route was realigned sometime in the late 1920's. But that didn't mean the end for the bridge. The bridge fought gallantly to survive. Floods attacked it in 1916, 1919, 1920, 1921, 1923, 1931, 1932, and 1941. By August 1955 it was deemed a safety hazard and one section was dynamited.

Ironically today the river that did the bridge in has been done in itself. The river is bone dry. Phoenix now uses every drop of the once mighty river. It has become a ghost river. Once in a blue moon Painted Rock Damn located to the east will release water down the old river bed if the reservoir gets full. It never flows as you see in the pictures from old though, they know exactly how much to release and it has all become scientific now (which is pretty good since Yuma to the west has built up and would be devastated by the onslaught of the waters of the old Gila if they were to flow again). In 2010 I was able to witness such a release and saw the old bridge stand strong against rushing waters once more. The modern roadway that bypasses the old bridge didn't fair so well. It was washed down stream.

As a bonus on this waymark there is a huge orphaned railroad bridge running parallel to the old auto bridge you can visit too. It is also orphaned but in tact. It was built in 1925 with higher piers and with pilings rather than slab footers (lesson learned?). Be sure to see its entry under rail bridges. You can see both waymarks from the same location.

Credits: The early photos of the bridge are all compliments of Vince Breit and the Pioneer Museum located just few miles to the west at 10402 Fresno Street in Wellton Arizona. Much of the background information was obtained from the Arizona Department of Transportation.

Original Use: Vehicle - Car / Truck Date Built: August 18, 1915 Construction: Concrete Condition: Collapsed / Destroyed Date Abandoned: 1955 Bridge Status - Orphaned or Adopted.: Orphaned See this website for more information: Not listed

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