19th Street Bridge is a two-span through Pratt truss

road bridge A bridge is a structure built to span a physical obstacle (such as a body of water, valley, road, or rail) without blocking the way underneath. It is constructed for the purpose of providing passage over the obstacle, which is usually somethi ...

Denver Denver () is a consolidated city and county, the capital, and most populous city of the U.S. state of Colorado. Its population was 715,522 at the 2020 census, a 19.22% increase since 2010. It is the 19th-most populous city in the Unit ...

Colorado Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the wes ...

, over the

South Platte River The South Platte River is one of the two principal tributaries of the Platte River. Flowing through the U.S. states of Colorado and Nebraska, it is itself a major river of the American Midwest and the American Southwest/ Mountain West. It ...

, now used for

pedestrians A pedestrian is a person traveling on foot, whether walking or running. In modern times, the term usually refers to someone walking on a road or pavement, but this was not the case historically. The meaning of pedestrian is displayed with ...

. It was built in 1888 to replace a wooden structure and carried automobile traffic until 1986. The bridge is listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic ...

History

A number of bridges were built across the South Platte River beginning in 1859, and by 1875, there was interest in a bridge to span the river at the 19th Street location. In 1876, a wooden bridge was constructed at the site. This previous bridge was closed to traffic in 1884 after it was damaged in a flood. Because of repeated floods destroying numerous wooden bridges, the city of Denver sought to replace them with metal structures. By 1887, because of their ready availability and low expense, the city began building metal bridges to replace the wooden spans. On August 26, 1887, the Missouri Valley Bridge and Iron Works was contracted to build the 19th Street Bridge. The structure cost $25,000, including $8,250 for of iron. Construction on the new span was complete in 1888. Around 1898, a plan surfaced to rebuild the bridge as a viaduct so that it would not cross only the river, but also the rail switching yard. However, the plan was defeated in June 1904. The bridge has remained mostly unmodified since construction. Timber decking was replaced with corrugated steel following a 1961 flood and some bent hinges were replaced as a result of a 1965 flood. The 19th Street Bridge was listed on the

on February 4, 1985. Because of repeated wear and deterioration caused by salt for melting ice, the bridge was restricted to pedestrians and bicycles beginning on December 16, 1986. Following the closure, a new vehicular bridge was planned downstream (to the northeast), tentatively referred to as the "Nineteen and A-Half Street Bridge"; it was built in 1992. Aside from serving as a pedestrian bridge, the structure has hosted the annual "Gala on the Bridge", a fundraiser for The Greenway Foundation. It began in 2011, and was described in ''The Denver Post'' as the "first time the bridge has been used for anything other than a way for people to cross the South Platte River". In the state of Colorado, at the time of its NRHP nomination, the 19th Street Bridge was described as the oldest surviving

wrought iron Wrought iron is an iron alloy with a very low carbon content (less than 0.08%) in contrast to that of cast iron (2.1% to 4%). It is a semi-fused mass of iron with fibrous slag inclusions (up to 2% by weight), which give it a wood-like "grain" ...

bridge, oldest vehicular bridge at its original location, and oldest vehicular bridge still in public use.

Design

The bridge's two spans have a through Pratt truss design, each with five panels. The structure is about long with a roadway about wide. The roadbed is concrete on corrugated metal, replacing the original wood decking. The structural members are made of wrought iron and are pin-connected. The top chords are horizontal, and the upper struts are "unusually deep"

I-beam An I-beam, also known as H-beam (for universal column, UC), w-beam (for "wide flange"), universal beam (UB), rolled steel joist (RSJ), or double-T (especially in Polish, Bulgarian, Spanish, Italian and German), is a beam with an or -shape ...

s. Sidewalks, decorated with iron

newel A newel, also called a central pole or support column, is the central supporting pillar of a staircase. It can also refer to an upright post that supports and/or terminates the handrail of a stair banister (the "newel post"). In stairs having st ...

s and latticework, cantilever off both sides of the bridge. The south sidewalk permits pedestrians, while the north one has no deck and carries utility lines. The bridge is supported by ashlar piers of solid stone. The latticed portals feature decorative cast iron crests and

finials A finial (from '' la, finis'', end) or hip-knob is an element marking the top or end of some object, often formed to be a decorative feature. In architecture, it is a small decorative device, employed to emphasize the apex of a dome, spire, towe ...

, and a plaque with the builder's inscription. The bridge is described by

History Colorado History Colorado is a historical society that was established in 1879 as the State Historical Society of Colorado, also known as the Colorado Historical Society. History Colorado is a 501(c)(3) organization and an agency of the State of Colorado un ...

as one of the most ornamental in Colorado.

Notes

References

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