Michigan's Bridges: Charlotte Highway Bridge at the Historic Bridge Park (3)

August 2011 (42.291 Degrees, -85.115 Degrees) Charlotte Highway Bridge

The Charlotte Highway Bridge was removed from its stone abutments in 2001 according to the Calhoun County Road Commission Website. In 2005, new floor beams were manufactured and in 2006, the existing steel girders, wood deck, and truss members were reassembled onto them. By the beginning of 2007 cranes had lifted up the completed truss bridge onto its new abutments over the park entrance.

The Historic Bridge Website has hundreds of photos of the truss in pieces, stamped to identify each element, painted bright red, reassembled, and placed over the park entrance.

A park for old bridges was the idea of Dennis Randolph, who was the managing director of the Calhoun County Road Commission. Apparently, he designated a county park to be the home for some of the many old bridges that he saw being demolished and sold as scrap metal. The park was proof that given a chance, contemporary craftsman can take an old bridge in poor condition and reassemble it better than new.

Michigan's Bridges: Charlotte Highway Bridge at the Historic Bridge Park (3) by Mark Yashinsky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.