Crowe's Bridge to be replaced in 2016

Crowe's Bridge

An iron truss bridge that is actually older than three of Putnam County's covered bridges will finally be replaced in 2016.

A federal aid project to replace Crowe's Bridge, a 113-year-old bridge spanning Big Walnut Creek at County Road 100 East, has been in the works since 1999, County Highway Supervisor Mike Ricketts told the Putnam County Commissioners recently.

With the application and approval process over, in addition to the land acquisition, bridge replacement should begin this fall.

Ricketts reported that the project is set to be awarded to a contractor on Oct. 7, with work beginning thereafter.

The new bridge is to be completed by December 2016.

As part of the process, the commissioners approved a $200,000 contract for observation services during the replacement.

One potential snafu in replacing Crowe's (Bridge 137) was avoided several years ago when the structure in northern Greencastle Township was not placed on the National Register of Historic Places. The county had earlier learned the bridge might be eligible for such a designation.

Although historic designation sounds good on the surface, the process of replacing a historic bridge can be fraught with financial trouble for local governments. Such bridges have to either be left in place and therefore maintained, or at least bypassed, as the county did last year with Houck Covered Bridge in Washington Township.

In the case of Houck Iron Bridge, less than a mile downstream from Crowe's, the county was able to dismantle the old bridge, but not simply dispose of it.

Instead, contractors went through the convoluted process of taking the bridge down piece by piece, then labeling and cataloging each piece. If not for a helping hand from northern Indiana, the county would have been forced to store the dismantled bridge for 25 years before discarding the pieces.

Instead, the pieces of Houck Iron Bridge were trucked to White County, where they were reassembled. Houck Iron Bridge, renamed Gray Bridge, now serves as a pedestrian bridge in the Wabash and Erie Canal Park in Delphi.

Houck's neighbor bridge to the east may not have been so easy to ship away.

Instead, the county will be completely replacing one its oldest bridges, one rated as having poor roadway alignment, a posted three-ton weight limit and serious problems, including rust section loss, bent vertical members and wide cracks on the substructure.

Despite the bridge's poor rating, the cost savings and no official historic designation, some residents are lamenting the impending loss of a piece of local history. The depth of the water at Crowe's Bridge made the area a favored swimming hole years past. Although not authorized by the county, many swimmers enjoyed using the bridge as a jumping off point.

The fact that Crowe's was able to remain open even with its limitations has been fortunate for drivers in the area. Between the May 2007 closure of Houck Iron Bridge and the 2012 opening of its replacement on County Road 25 East, Crowe's Bridge was the only open bridge over Big Walnut Creek between Bridge 73 in southwestern Floyd Township and U.S. 231 north of Greencastle.

The 2006 closure of Bridge 139 (Pinhook Bridge) at 125 North and Big Walnut Creek and the 1997 closure of Bridge 138, the concrete bridge at 200 East and Dry Branch Creek, left motorists with only one option in the area.

With the bridge on 25 East now operational, the detour is likely to follow County Road 200 North to County Road 25 East (Houck Road) to Albin Pond Road on Greencastle's north side.