The Bell Bridge, crossing the

Niobrara River The Niobrara River (; oma, Ní Ubthátha khe, , literally "water spread-out horizontal-the" or "The Wide-Spreading Water") is a tributary of the Missouri River, approximately long,U.S. Geological Survey. Many early settlers, such as Mari Sando ...

near

Valentine, Nebraska Valentine is a city in Cherry County, Nebraska, United States. The population was 2,737 at the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Cherry County. History Valentine was founded in 1882. The Valentine post office was established on December 4, ...

, is a historic bridge that 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 v ...

. It is a

Pratt through truss A truss bridge is a bridge whose load-bearing superstructure is composed of a truss, a structure of connected elements, usually forming triangular units. The connected elements (typically straight) may be stressed from tension, compression, or s ...

bridge that was designed by the Canton Bridge Co. of Canton, Ohio, fabricated by the

Cambria Steel Co. The Cambria Iron Company of Johnstown, Pennsylvania was a major 19th-century industrial producer of iron and steel. Founded in 1852, it had the nation's largest steel foundry in the 1870s, and was renamed the Cambria Steel Company in 1898. The co ...

of Johnstown, Pennsylvania, and built by the Canton Bridge Co. It was built in 1903 and brings a Cherry County road across the Niobrara, 11.9 miles northeast of Valentine. It has also been known as the Allen Bridge and the Niobrara River Bridge and is registered as NEHBS No. CE00-22. It is one of just four bridges in Cherry County that survived a flood in February, 1916. According to its NRHP nomination it is notable as "one of the oldest, longest and best-preserved of Cherry County's remarkable group of through trusses" and is "distinguished as one of the handful of pre-1916 trusses remaining" in the county and in the state. and National Register designation was given in 1992.

References

External links

* More photos of the Bell Bridge at

Wikimedia Commons Wikimedia Commons (or simply Commons) is a media repository of free-to-use images, sounds, videos and other media. It is a project of the Wikimedia Foundation. Files from Wikimedia Commons can be used across all of the Wikimedia projects in ...

Road bridges on the National Register of Historic Places in Nebraska Bridges completed in 1903 Bridges in Cherry County, Nebraska National Register of Historic Places in Cherry County, Nebraska Steel bridges in the United States {{Nebraska-bridge-struct-stub