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Dunns Bridge is an unincorporated community in Kankakee Township,
Dunns Bridge is located at . The bridge is rumored to be built at least partially from materials obtained from the original Ferris wheel at the 1893 Dunn's Bridge restoration wins state engineering award
''The Chesterton Tribune''. Retrieved 1 June 2008
Jasper County
Jasper County is the name of eight counties in the United States of America. All are named in honor of Sergeant William Jasper, a hero of the Revolutionary War. Five counties share a boundary with a Newton County, named for John Newton
John ...
, Indiana
Indiana () is a U.S. state in the Midwestern United States. It is the 38th-largest by area and the 17th-most populous of the 50 States. Its capital and largest city is Indianapolis. Indiana was admitted to the United States as the 19th s ...
, United States. It sits along the Kankakee River
The Kankakee River is a tributary of the Illinois River, approximately long, in the Central Corn Belt Plains of northwestern Indiana and northeastern Illinois in the United States. At one time, the river drained one of the largest wetlands in N ...
at the south end of two bridges over the river, connecting Jasper and Porter counties. The historic Dunns Bridge lies just west of a modern bridge that carries Porter County Road 500 East and Jasper County Road 400 East over the Kankakee.
The bridge and community are southeast of the town of Kouts and northeast of the town of Wheatfield. The bridge lies north of Tefft, Indiana, which was formerly known as Dunnville. Both the town and the community around the bridge, formally known as ''Dunn's Original KKK Pleasure Resort'' , were laid out by Isaac D. Dunn.
Historic bridge
Dunns Bridge is located at . The bridge is rumored to be built at least partially from materials obtained from the original Ferris wheel at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition
The World's Columbian Exposition (also known as the Chicago World's Fair) was a world's fair held in Chicago
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in Chicago
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. The current maintainers of the bridge, the Porter County Parks Department, state only that it is "built from parts of a building from the 1893 Chicago World's Fair." Upon a cursory look at the lack of parallelness of the tops of the arches (flattening), the Ferris Wheel heritage is impossible. More likely, the arches may have been salvaged from a building at that exposition and the general similarity to a wheel was noted and the misinformation took root as legend.
There are four small sections, two at each end, that appear to be ornamental. These smaller sections have the right radius for a ferris wheel. The radius and arch shape match that of Machinery Hall or Electricity Hall from the Exposition. Machinery Hall burned and the steel was sold as scrap at about the time the bridge was built.
The bridge was renovated in 2003, winning a state award for the engineering work involved.''The Chesterton Tribune''. Retrieved 1 June 2008
References