Mower Road Bridge

Bridge Documented: Fall/Winter 2006

Key Facts

Bridge Name	Facility Carried / Feature Intersected	Location	Structure Type	Construction Date / Builder or Contractor
Mower Road Bridge	Mower Road Over Cole Drain	Rural: Saginaw County, Michigan	Concrete Through Girder, Stationary	1920 By: Denton and Johnson of Saginaw, Michigan

Technical Facts

Structure Length	Roadway Width	Span Length	Main Spans	Approach Spans
135 Feet (41.1 Meters)	18 Feet (5.5 Meters)	45 Feet	3	None

Most of Michigan's concrete girder bridges are single span; this bridge is three spans. It appears to be the longest straight chord through girder open on public roads today. As such, its historic significance is great enough that this bridge should be preserved at all costs. It is on a lightly traveled road, so this should not asking too much in terms of efficiency and safety on the roadway. However, Saginaw County is not noted for historic bridge preservation. Although there has been some deterioration where the girders are seated on the piers, the bridge appears to be in decent condition, with minimal spalling, meaning its historic integrity is excellent as well.

Information and Findings From MDOT

MDOT Historic Bridge Saginaw County Mower Road/Cole Drain Among the seventeen bridges included from Saginaw County in Michigan’s statewide historic bridge inventory is this three-span concrete structure northwest of Fosters. The structure carries Mower Road over the Cole Drain in rural Spaulding Township. The Mower Road Bridge is comprised of three concrete through girder spans, supported by concrete abutments and massive piers with bullnosed cutwaters.

Built from a standard design by the Michigan State Highway Department, the bridge features straight 45-foot girders, which form the guardrails on either side of the concrete slab deck. The small amount of architectural expression is limited to the rectangular recessed panels on the girders, the heavy corbeled girder caps and the bronze “State Reward Bridge” plates. The Mower Road Bridge has suffered minor spalling and chipping of its girders and differential settling of its piers, but the structure is unaltered and in good condition.

The Mower Road Bridge was designed by the Michigan State Highway Department and built as a State Reward bridge in 1920 by Saginaw contractors Denton and Johnson. Its concrete through girder configuration was based on a standard design that the Michigan State Highway Department had developed in the 1913-14 biennium. The highway department delineated straight girders in five-foot increments between 30 and 50 feet for use in a wide variety of applications in the 1910s and 1920s.

“The reinforced concrete through girder is the design generally employed for spans from thirty to fifty feet in both the eighteen and twenty-foot clear roadway form curb to curb,” MSHD stated in its Seventh Biennial Report. “This design lends itself in the majority of cases on account of its very shallow floor system, thereby giving the waterway a maximum clearance under elevation of roadway crossing the bridge.”

By 1930 the through girder had largely fallen out of favor with the state and county highway departments, but before it was discontinued, perhaps hundreds of theses utilitarian structures were built throughout the state.

Visit MDOT's Historic Bridge Website