| Key Facts |
| Bridge Name | Facility Carried / Feature Intersected | Location | Structure Type | Construction Date / Builder or Contractor |
| Frith Road Private Bridge | Private Drive Over Smiths Creek | Rural: St. Clair County, Michigan | Metal Pinned Pratt Full-Slope Pony Truss, Stationary | 0 By: Unknown |
This bridge is a Pratt through truss, with five panels. Vertical members are latticed, and no v-lacing is present on the bridge. Floor beams are built-up. Originally located on Belle River Road near Capac, MI, this bridge was moved off the road some time ago to a nearby farm. Later, the bridge made another move to a private drive on Frith Road, where it remains today.
The date of construction is likely somewhere from the late 1880s through the 1890s. This bridge has connection nuts that are similar to the Six Mile Creek Road Bridge, which was built by the Morse Bridge Company. The Morse Bridge company was noted for using these unusual nuts, but these nuts also appear on other bridges built by other companies, so this similarities is not enough to draw a Morse Bridge Company connection to the pony truss off of Frith Road.
The owner of this bridge undertook all the work on this bridge himself. Among other things, he built a wooden deck for the bridge. This deck is extremely well-done, and really makes this bridge feel historically correct. Have a look at the photo gallery for this bridge, and then compare it to Martin Road, which has a similar, but much older wooden deck. The owner also built home-made caissons and approaches for the bridge. The caissons were made by sinking metal barrels seven barrels deep into the ground, and then filling them with concrete. Although this bridge may not have originally been sitting on caissons, this method of concrete inside metal historically was a technique applied in period bridge construction, and is how the Frith Road Bridge and the Morseville Bridge are supported.
