Center Road Bridge

Most Recent Visit To Bridge: Fall 2005

Key Facts

Bridge Name	Facility Carried / Feature Intersected	Location	Structure Type	Construction Date / Builder or Contractor
Center Road Bridge	Center Road Over Tittabawassee River	Rural: Saginaw County, Michigan	Metal Stringer, Stationary	1927 By: Unknown

Technical Facts

Structure Length	Roadway Width	Main Spans	Approach Spans
329 Feet (100.3 Meters)	30 Feet (9.1 Meters)	5	None

This bridge is a very long example of its type. Michigan does not have many large rivers, and as a result, this is a very long bridge of any kind for Michigan. It is also an early, 1927 example of a bridge type which was mostly built in the 1930s. It is also significant for having a high degree of historic integrity, with no major alterations to the design of the bridge. These bridges were designed to look like they were all-concrete. They are in fact simple steel beam bridges. What looks like a concrete beam, is actually a layer of cement on top of the steel. The beams were from the American Bridge Company, according to MDOT. The cement shows its age, but more from normal wear and not from salt damage. The overall condition of the bridge is good, with a 41-61-64 ton weight limit posted. There is some railing damage, possibly originating from a collision, at one spot on the bridge. The abutments appear to have settled slightly, giving the railings on them an unusual angled position.

Historic Significance Rating (HSR)

Information and Findings From MDOT

MDOT Historic Bridge Saginaw County Center Rd./ Tittabawassee River This multiple-span concrete/steel bridge carries Center Road across the Tittabawassee River in the southwestern quadrant of the city of Saginaw. The structure is configured as five 65-foot, steel stringer spans, with nine lines of rolled I-beams supported simply by massive concrete abutments and spill-through piers. The outside webs of the spandrel stringers have been encased in concrete with a coved profile, giving the bridge and all-concrete appearance. The stringers carry a concrete deck, which is bounded on both sides by MSHD standard concrete guardrails with classical fluted balusters and paneled bulkheads. Although unaltered, the Tittabawassee River Bridge has experienced some concrete spalling on its guardrails and spandrels.

In the summer of 1926 engineers for the Michigan State Highway Department delineated this concrete/steel bridge over the Tittabasassee River. Located just south of Saginaw, the county seat, the bridge as proposed by the county road commission would carry Center Street. The department funded the structure as a State Reward bridge and in July awarded a contract for its construction to the Willits Brothers Construction Company of Bay City. Willits used a steel superstructure fabricated by the American Bridge Company to complete the bridge that following year. Total cost: almost $71,000.

Since its completion, the Tittabawassee River Bridge has functioned in place, in essentially unaltered condition. The bridge’s steel stringer configuration is one that MSHD used extensively for bridges in the 1930s and 1940s.

Although the highway department had delineated a standard steel stringer design as early the 1905-1906 biennium, the relatively shallow I-beams that were being fabricated by the steel mills limited their span – first to 30 feet, later to 45 feet. When the mills began producing deeper beams in the late 1920s, MSHD could extend the spans of its steel stringer bridges.

“When this type of structure was first put in use,” MSHD stated in 1930, “rolled sections of sufficient strength were not available for spans greater than about forty-five feet. It was necessary, therefore, to use relatively shallow fabricated deck girders for spans greater than forty-five feet. Rather recently, however, steel mills have improved their methods and are able to furnish rolled sections which, on proper spacing, are suitable for spans up to sixty feet.”

Built in 1927 with a span length of 65 feet, the Tittabawassee River Bridge is representative of MSHD long-span beam bridge design of the 1920s.

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