| Key Facts |
| Bridge Name | Facility Carried / Feature Intersected | Location | Structure Type | Construction Date / Builder or Contractor |
| Prospect Bridge | Water Street (OH-47) Over Scioto River | Prospect: Marion County, Ohio | Metal Pinned Parker Through Truss, Stationary | 1913 By: Standard Engineering Company of Toledo, Ohio |
| Technical Facts |
| Rehabilitation Date | Structure Length | Roadway Width | Main Spans | Approach Spans |
| 1985 | 226 Feet (68.9 Meters) | 22 Feet (6.7 Meters) | 1 | None |
This bridge is a magnificent structure, providing a single clear span of 226 feet over the Scioto River, and composed of eleven panels. It is one of those bridges that acts as a gateway for Prospect, providing a dramatic entrance into the city. It is ornately decorated, featuring attractive portal knee bracing, as well as a decorative design on top of the portal bracing. A late example of a pin-connected truss bridge, this is a very wide bridge, and features an unusual design of bracing overhead, in the form of a section of bracing that runs parallel to the top chord through the sway bracing.
This bridge appears to have once had cantilevered sidewalks, which were removed. The lattice railings from those sidewalks appear to have been saved, and indeed are the railings seen on the bridge today. They are oddly mounted inside the vertical members, and evidence of some cutting of parts of the railings to make them fit around diagonals is apparent. The bridge likely had no railings inside the truss lines prior to this alteration.
This bridge is worthy of being considered historic for its impressive span size. It is an unusually wide structure, and is well-decorated. It acts as an important gateway for Prospect, and is arguably the center attraction of the town. Unfortunately, ODOT does not agree with any of this, and feels that the only way to deal with the poor condition of the bridge is to demolish it. Under Section 106, they offered the bridge to a third party, but as one might guess, the bridge is of a size that only a unit as rich as the government can (and should) have to bear the burden of restoring this bridge for light vehicular or pedestrian use. It would have been nice to see this bridge restored, even with retrofitting, to allow this bridge to remain as an important historic landmark, and gateway for Prospect.
