Dateline: January 8, 2009

State closes historic bridge

By Roger Estlack, Clarendon Enterprise

State officials have closed the Seventh Street Bridge at City Park, but the bridge’s age and historical significance may save the structure from being replaced.

Clarendon City Administrator John Webb said the city barricaded the 100-year-old bridge after receiving a letter from the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) last month.

“We received a notice on December 16 and closed the bridge immediately,” Webb said. “People then started driving through the creek bed, and we put up crossties to stop that.”

TxDOT Childress District Bridge Engineer Charles Steed said in the letter to Mayor Chris Ford that the firm of Kimley Horn & Associates recommended the “bridge be closed due to the overall weak condition of the bridge.”

The Seventh Street Bridge was built in 1908 by the Valley Bridge Company of Leavenworth, Kan., according to City Superintendent Jim Roberts.

Longtime residents will recall the bridge used to have a wooden deck until it was replaced with a deck of metal runners several years ago.

City officials had expected the bridge to be replaced under TxDOT’s “off system” program through which the state pays 90 percent of the cost of a new city or county bridge.

State officials have previously told the city they will present several designs to the Board of Aldermen so they can select a bridge that complements City Park.

But Steed said this week that replacing the bridge might not be a simple process.

“The age and the fact that it is a pony truss bridge makes it historically significant,” Steed said. “That causes problems for us getting an environmental document (necessary to replace the bridge) approved by the federal government.”

Because of these factors, replacing the bridge will take until 2011 at the earliest, Steed said.

The city could elect to make necessary repairs to reopen the bridge to vehicle traffic. It’s also possible the bridge could be converted to pedestrian traffic and another crossing be installed for vehicles.

Steed said if the city wants to keep the Seventh Street Bridge for historic or aesthetic reasons, responsibility for the bridge would fall back on the city. He also said it is possible that state engineers could find a method to improve the bridge without replacing it.

The Seventh Street Bridge was one of four “structurally deficient” bridges in Donley County listed on a 2007 report from the state. Following that report, the state hired a firm to do a structural analysis of the bridge, which resulted in last month’s letter.

The same 2007 report listed the Rosenfield Street Bridge on the north side of town as structurally deficient. Steed says that bridge – a 1940 Warren truss bridge – is also historically significant but is in better condition that the Seventh Street Bridge.

Work on the Rosenfield Street Bridge may not come until 2012 or 2013.