Old truss bridge south of Inola, Oklahoma

[bugo]

I was cruising Google Maps one night and stumbled upon what appeared to be an abandoned truss bridge. I did a bunch of research and found nothing online. There wasn't even a listing for this bridge on Bridgehunter (there is now, I added one after I confirmed the bridge existed.) I decided to go check it out and sure enough, there was an abandoned truss bridge. It is much bigger and higher off the ground than I expected for it to be. It's a huge old bridge. The deck is missing other than a dozen or so boards but the bridge is otherwise intact. From the looks of the bridge and the construction, I would wager that it was built before 1920. It has old style lally columns made of steel filled with concrete. It is located over an old channel of the Verdigris River about 8 miles south of Inola in rural Wagoner County, Oklahoma, tucked away on a minor road that ends in a field. It was obviously once a major crossing on a major road, but the river was rerouted at one time and the old river channel is now only a small creek. There is a culvert next to the bridge. The old river is so small and shallow that you could walk through it, in fact there is what appears to be a ford next to the bridge. The main span is a Parker through truss span that I would estimate is 150 feet long flanked by a Pratt pony truss span on either end. This bridge has obviously been out of service for decades and decades.

Does anybody have any information about this bridge? I may have to drive to Wagoner to the library or historic society and see what I can find out. There is absolutely nothing about it other than the Bridgehunter listing that I added.

Here are the pictures I took, starting off with a Google Maps view.










[/list]

[BacktotheFuture4Life]

Hmm.... I've heard of this through the grape vine. Never been, but it's on my bucket list.

[bugo]

Hmm.... I've heard of this through the grape vine. Never been, but it's on my bucket list.

Do you know any details about it like when it was built? There was literally nothing about it online until I added it to Bridgehunter. I thought about going to the Wagoner library to see if I could find any information. I found out about the bridge by following streams in Google Earth looking for signs of bridges. This bridge follows an old channel of the Verdigris River which may account for why it was undiscovered for so long. This is the second bridge I've found in this manner, I also "discovered" the Bigelow Bridge in Arkansas using Terraserver (It was a long time ago.) This bridge is huge and looms big over the creek.