The closed Gasconade River Bridge near Hazelgreen, Missouri, on Friday was named to the Missouri Alliance for Historic Preservation‘s historic Places in Peril list for 2018.
The bridge also was placed on the list in 2015, when the state in late 2014 closed the bridge due to structural deterioration.
The alliance issues a Places in Peril list each year to bring publicity to endangered properties, with the hope a person or entity will step in and save them.
According to a news release, he’s what the alliance wrote about the bridge:
The Route 66 Bridge over the Gasconade River near Hazelgreen consists of a three-span through truss structure which was designed by the Missouri Highway Department and fabricated by the Illinois Steel Company of Chicago between 1922 and 1924. It represents one of the few bridges remaining from the 1920s and constructed even before the Federal Aid Highway Act, which established a national highway system in 1925. Route 66 is without a doubt the most famous road in America. The bridges and roads that are part of the Route 66 corridor are important because they characterize Missouri and the changes that took place as a result of the automobile. Scenic byways such as Missouri’s Route 66 have value not only for aesthetics and preservation, but are also a way to promote heritage tourism and increase tourism income. Historical records show that there has long been an absence of repair and maintenance at this bridge. The Gasconade River Bridge near Hazelgreen was reported for several years to be deficient, but no remediation done to correct its problems. Then in 2014 the bridge was permanently closed to traffic. Recently Pulaski County and the Missouri Department of Transportation reopened a similar Route 66 bridge, the Devil’s Elbow Bridge. The effort was funded in large part with grant money. The Route 66 Gasconade River Guardians received a National Park Service matching grant in the amount of $6,000, and the group is now pursuing an engineering assessment to determine the structural status of the Bridge. When completed they hope to more actively pursue a new owner for the Bridge, as the Missouri Department of Transportation has plans to begin demolition in March 2019 if a suitable new owner is not identified. It is hoped the assessment will be a tool to estimate repair costs to make the bridge safe for pedestrian, bicycle or vehicular traffic. It is hoped the Route 66 Gasconade River Guardians can continue their work to help raise awareness and needed funds to find it possible to reopen this iconic bridge on the “mother road.”
Iowa-based Workin’ Bridges earlier this year backed out of the project to rehabilitate the bridge after questions arose from several Route 66 advocates about the group’s transparency and methods, including a Revive 66 road-trip campaign and website that have disappeared off Facebook and the internet. Workin’ Bridges eventually returned its donations to the Guardians.
(Image of the Gasconade River Bridge courtesy of MaryPetrina Photography)
As someone who has long supported the keeping of not just the ‘pretty’ and ‘arty’ parts of the world’s physical structures maintained for the benefit of future generations, I am pleased to see that the Gasconade River Bridge now has a good chance of being prevented from collapse or deliberate destruction. In the UK we had the deliberate demolition of the magnificent Euston Arch and Great Hall when the Euston mainline railway station in London was rebuilt in the 1960s. In New York about the same time there was the deliberate destruction of the above ground structure of Penn Station. In both London and New York the destruction of two magnificent railway buildings led to the preservation of two others proposed for demolition: St Pancras in London, the Grand Central Terminal in New York. How is it that there have to be such losses before the value of such parts of our history is realised? Imagine destroying the Colosseum in Rome to replace it with an office block.
Maybe it could be converted into a walking art or photography display. Hanging large pictures and murals either painted or taken by local artists and photographers. Obviously it would need more security to avoid vandalism. The artwork could be hung on the bridge trusses and you could walk through and enjoy it.