|
Key Facts |
Bridge Name | Type | Road | Location | City | Crossing |
| Foos Road Bridge | Truss | Foos Road | Preble County, OH | Rural | Prices Creek |
|
Technical Facts |
|
Construction Date |
Structure Length | Roadway Width | Builder |
| 1931 | 75.1 Feet | 20 Feet | Brookville Bridge Company of Brookville, OH |
This bridge is a warren pony truss with riveted connections and a polygonal top chord. The bridge features v-lacing under the top chord. The deck is concrete with an asphalt wearing surface. There are rocker bearings at the east end of the bridge. There is another bridge similar to this on Camden College Corner Road. The bridges were built by the Brookville Bridge Company.
There also used to be a two-span example of this bridge design, built by this bridge company, on nearby US-40. ODOT, in its stupidity, elected to demolish the bridge in 2002, rather than re-locating it, or bypassing it for preservation as a pedestrian structure. This is of course the first tragedy. The second happened long ago, when that US-40 Bridge was being built. As DOT's typically do, as "mitigation" for demolishing a historic bridge, they placed an interpretive plaque near the new slab. I became more angry with every sentence I read on the plaque. As it turns out, it was on that US-40 Bridge, that Herman S. Fox, the president of the Brookville Bridge Company died while directing the construction of that bridge. The plaque didn't say if the death was on or off site, nor whether it was from a construction accident or not. This infuriates me greatly, because one of the reasons it is important to preserve historic truss bridges, is because sometimes people died to build these bridges. Even if they didn't die while building them, they are still a tribute to the people who built them, a memorial of sorts. Unlike the standard bridges of today, older bridges, perhaps including these Brookville Bridge Company bridges, may have been the design of a single person or company who tried to work out the best design to build. To destroy them is to desecrate a monument to their achievements as a person. I see no reason why this bridge could not have been bypassed and restored for pedestrian use.
More annoying on the plaques for the US-40 bridge was that it said the truss bridge "faithfully served the traveling public from 1926 to 2002." Of course it served traffic faithfully, it was a well-built pony truss! It would have continued to serve faithfully if it had been restored rather than obliterated by ODOT! One last aggravating thing was that the plaques dedicated the new, ugly slab bridge to Herman Fox. If I were Fox, I would turn over in my grave to have such an ugly bridge named after me. It is more of an insult than an honor to dedicate a slab to someone. It would be like dedicating a toilet to someone! No one does that, because it would be interpreted as an insult.
I had to put all that US-40 discussion on this page, because there was no US-40 Bridge left for me to photograph when I visited Preble County, and so I can't make a web page for it. Regarding Foos Road, the bridge represents the style of bridge that this Brookville Bridge Company built, and it is likely similar to the design of the US-40 bridge. Today, with only two examples of this company's work, it is imperative that the Foos Road Bridge be preserved. I personally think that ODOT should completely fund the restoration of this county road bridge, to make up for their crime of demolishing the US-40 bridge!
