Property Record
MILL ST, .1 MI. SOUTH OF SH 95
Architecture and History Inventory
| Historic Name: | |
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| Other Name: | |
| Contributing: | |
| Reference Number: | 63885 |
| Location (Address): | MILL ST, .1 MI. SOUTH OF SH 95 |
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| County: | Trempealeau |
| City: | |
| Township/Village: | Arcadia |
| Unincorporated Community: | |
| Town: | 21 |
| Range: | 9 |
| Direction: | W |
| Section: | 34 |
| Quarter Section: | SW |
| Quarter/Quarter Section: | NW |
| Year Built: | 1910 |
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| Additions: | |
| Survey Date: | 19772015 |
| Historic Use: | pony truss bridge |
| Architectural Style: | NA (unknown or not a building) |
| Structural System: | Pratt Truss |
| Wall Material: | |
| Architect: | |
| Other Buildings On Site: | |
| Demolished?: | No |
| Demolished Date: |
| National/State Register Listing Name: | Not listed |
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| National Register Listing Date: | |
| State Register Listing Date: |
| Additional Information: | 2015: The Mill Road Bridge (P-61-171) is a single-span, pin-connected, metal, half-hip Pratt pony truss constructed c.1910. The bridge carries Mill Road across Turton Creek on a northeast-southwest alignment and is 66 feet long with a single 17.7-foot travel lane. The structure is directly above a concrete dam, and the stone abutments rise above the concrete wingwalls of the dam. The bridge’s superstructure is composed of angles and channels, and the verticals utilize v-lacing. Diagonals are double rectangular looped eyebars and single cylindrical looped eyebars with open turnbuckles. The floor system consists of rolled I-beam floor beams hung from the pins and braced with threaded rods; rolled stringers support a timber deck with a thin layer of asphalt pavement. Railings on the inner face of both truss panels are composed of angles. The bridge is currently closed to vehicular and pedestrian traffic and steel bars have been welded across both ends. Based on the known history of the STH 95/Turton Creek crossing, the 1930 date recorded for P-61-171 in WisDOT’s inventory may in fact refer to the construction of a parallel structure immediately to the north (nonextant), associated with a highway realignment that bypassed the subject bridge in the early 1930s.[1] A bridge similar in appearance to P-61-171 is faintly visible in the background of a c.1915 photograph of the mill operator’s family, and the stone abutments and lightweight members suggest an earlier date of construction.[2] Pin-connected Pratt pony trusses were more commonly constructed before World War I, although the State Highway Commission (SHC) is unlikely to have constructed such a structure at that time; when first established in 1911 the SHC adopted a riveted Warren truss as their standard pony design, which was used for nearly all spans up to 80 feet.[3] |
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| Bibliographic References: | [1] “Government Projects,” Engineering News Record, 7 July 1932, 797. [2] Barbara Thoma Fossen, Praying Hearts, Working Hands and Dancing Feet (La Crescent, Minn.: Barbara Thoma Fossen, 2007), 27. [3] Wisconsin Department of Transportation, Historic Highway Bridges in Wisconsin, Vol. 2 Part 1, (Madison, Wis.: Wisconsin Department of Transportation, 1998), 52-53. |
| Wisconsin Architecture and History Inventory, State Historic Preservation Office, Wisconsin Historical Society, Madison, Wisconsin |