Humboldt County
Historical Association
PO Box 162
Humboldt, Iowa
50548
For a look at historic bridges in Humboldt County link
to:
http://www.bridgehunter.com/ia/humboldt/
TWO
HISTORIC BRIDGES OF HUMBOLDT COUNTY, IOWA
Adapted from program by Martha Schmidt
for HCHA meeting March 3, 2008
DAKOTA CITY BRIDGE
The first bridge in Humboldt County to be built, the Dakota City Bridge
was the result of a petition by Edward McKnight and signed by Charles
Bergk and 39 others "praying this court" to order an election and submit
to the people the propriety of building a bridge across the East Fork of
the Des Moines river on Section 6 Township 91 Range 98. An election was
held January 7, 1860 to ask the voters to support the building of three
bridges—at Dakota City, Sumner, and near Glen Farm—each not to exceed
$4000., and to issue bonds to pay for these bridges by selling swamp
lands.
The result isn't given in the
Board minutes, but the only bridge discussed that spring was the Dakota
City bridge. G. W. Couch of Waterloo signed a contract to build a bridge
by January 1861. He completed the project by October. The style of
bridge may have been a Pratt or Howe truss; there is no description
given in the minutes, nor is there a photograph of this bridge.
This bridge floated
downstream in the spring of 1867. At the April meeting Edward Snook was
hired "to be appointed to collect all the lumber, plank and lums (sic)
of the Dakota bridge which was carried away by recent freshets and to
place the same in some safe and convenient place." He was still
collecting in May due to high water; other locals also helped salvage
bridge parts. It must have been hard to put back together as a petition
signed by local citizens in October 1867 asked the board to bond the
taxable property of the county to build a new bridge. At the election
230 men voted for and only 34 voted against. The plan was to build a
Howe Truss bridge 160 feet in length for the sum of $10,475, to be
completed by December 1868. When Ira Welch came to the area in the
summer of 1868, he told of camping in Bergk's mill yard and seeing piles
of lumber to be used to build this bridge and to repair the mill dam.
The Humboldt County Museum has no photo of this photo of this bridge.
The $10,000 bridge didn't
last long. At a supervisor's meeting on July 7, 1871 "the matter of
replacing the Dakota Bridge was taken up and after due consideration the
Board deemed it advisable and proper to replace said bridge with an iron
bridge." J. Scott Jenkins, agent of the Ohio Bridge Company located in
Cleveland, Ohio, appearing before the Board, offered to construct the
latest improved patent Oval Wrought Iron Tubular Arch Truss Bridge for
the sum of $30.50 per lineal foot and have it completed on or before the
7th day of September, 1871. The Board voted to accept his proposal.
The bridge was a single span
about 155 feet in length with a 16 foot wide roadway. The county
furnished the abutments and piers. Money to pay for the work came from a
tax of 3 mills on the dollar on assessed value of the payable property
of the county. The Bridge Company received $4747.50 for construction.
Part of the contract stated that the County was to keep the iron work
well painted and to make sure that anyone riding or driving faster than
a walk or for driving at one time more than 15 head of cattle or more
than 50 head of sheep be fined five dollars.
This bridge stood from 1871 until 1913 when "due to a sad state of
repair" the Board of Supervisors hired the Iowa Bridge Company to
construct a highway bridge "across the Des Moines river, Dakota City,
Iowa, a two span steel truss with a concrete floor, clear width of
roadway 20 feet; no fill, clear length of spans 234 feet; drainage area
about 60,000 acres; estimated cost of $14,000.
The present Dakota City
bridge was built in 1987-1988 by the Iowa Bridge Company for the sum of
$407,---. it is 259 feet long and 39 feet wide—two equal sections joined
by a pier. So far, no-one has been fined for herding cattle or sheep
over it.
GRANT STREET
BRIDGE
It's not surprising that the early citizens of Humboldt County were
ready to build bridges as soon as it could be afforded. The county is
home to many rivers and creeks, and to two branches of the Des Moines
River: the East Branch and the West Branch. To reach Springvale (later
Humboldt) or Dakota City from the east, west or south, one of these
Branches had to be crossed.
The problem was tackled by
petitioning the Board of Supervisors, asking for a general election at
which county voters (at that time adult men only) would decide if they
wanted to support a tax or bonds placed on taxable county property to
raise enough money to build a bridge.
The Humboldt County Museum
has an original bridge petition written in August 1866. "The Undersigned
citizens of said Humboldt county, Respectfully represent, that a bridge
across the West Branch of the Des Moines river at a point opposite Grant
Street (now First Avenue South) in the Town of Springvale . . . and
connecting with the road duly Established by law . . .will grately (sic)
facilitate travel, and add to the convenience of the inhabitants of said
county."
The
Petition was signed by 300 men from across the county, so wasn't just a
local issue, and in the election in October 1866, the bridge passed with
138 voting for and 72 against. Charles Bergk of Dakota City surveyed the
bridge site. A bid submitted by G. Washington Hand, J.C. Cusey and
Jonathon Hutchinson for $6487.50 was rejected as too exorbitant. The
winning bid of $4300 was submitted by Daniel P. Russell and Dunham G.
Pinney. The design was probably a Howe or Platt Truss.
Following the winter of 1866-1867,
there were "unprecedented freshets in our rivers together with
destruction of all our bridges by floating ice" which "demonstrated the
necessity for a natural alteration of the ice breaks and piers to be
built." Russell and Pinney agreed to build two ice breaks and a dock for
an additional $995.
Weather was hard on wood as
this bridge had only been in use for ten years when the Board decided it
was time to replace it. A committee of B. H. Harkness and G. R. Hartwell
was appointed to examine the bridge and "proceed and make such repairs .
. . as deemed necessary." The following proposal was made at the
November 13, 1876 Board meeting" "Hartwell moved the Chairman of the
Board to advertise for proposals for the building of a Bridge across the
west fork of the Des Moines river at Humboldt. Said Bridge is to be an
Iron Bridge, one or two spans as may be deemed necessary."
A proposal made by King and
Wheelock, agents of the Ohio Bridge Company, to build an Iron Tubular
Arch Bridge for $4800 was accepted in January 1877. The bridge was to be
2 spans or 200 feet long and 16 feet wide.
The piers and abutments were
to be furnished by the county. A contract to build these was given to
William Leland, Charles Mastin, M. L. Peckham and George W. Clark. They
were to have the work completed by July 1, 1877 at a cost of $2000.
Before all was said and done, they asked for an additional $400 which
was approved.
Pier dimensions were: length
261.5 feet at the bottom, 22 feet long at the top and 8 feet wide at the
base. The Humboldt Independent
in its July 11, 1877 issue described the stone work as "really very
handsome, and would by no means make a bad looking house." By September
26, "The center bridge pier for our new structure at this place is
rising towards completion and makes an imposing appearance. The
workmanship is excellent and the material used substantial." They did
such a good job that the pier is still standing today in midstream.
The building of the bridge
hinged on a vote of the citizens to approve bonding the property of the
County for $4500. The election was held in October and the proposal lost
by 1 vote—320 to 319. Now what? The pier and abutments had been built.
The supervisors ordered a recount with the result of 319 votes for the
bridge and 309 against.
The bridge suffered damage in
the flood of 1881 at which time the east end was undermined. Even with
that, the second bridge across the West Fork last nearly thirty years.
It was May of 1906 when the
County Board of Supervisors advertised for bids to replace the Grant
Street Bridge. The new bridge didn't need to be approved at an election
as it was "about the limit the county was allowed to go"—it was the same
length and width ad the old one. The Supervisors decided to use the same
abutments which lessened the cost. Bids ranged from $3750 to $4900 and
were all rejected as too high. New bids were submitted with J. K.
Bancroft chosen to supply new material for the sum of $2490 while A. H.
Austin of Webster City removed the old bridge and built the new one for
$600. The style was steel truss which means that it was braced across
the top.
While the bridge was being
built, people crossed the river on a ferry that was "rigged up to convey
people across the river . . . Farmers from west of town can drive to
town and leave their teams on the west side of the river and come over
on the ferry and do their trading and attend to whatever business they
have and then return on the ferry."
There was talk in 1922, after
the Sumner Avenue Bridge was finished, one block north of Grant Street,
of moving the Bridge to a spot north of Livermore. This was rejected as
not being cost effective. The street names were changed in 1925 and
Grant Street became First Avenue South. This may be when the bridge came
to be known as the Lewis Bridge. Lewis Street was on the west side of
the river.
The Lewis Bridge was closed
to vehicle traffic some time in the 1970s and was finally demolished in
July of 1981. Some of us wish it were still there.