1/12/2024 0 Comments Car on stone arch bridge![]() “The bridges are clustered around small communities like Dexter in the southeast and Cambridge in the northeast,” says Cindy Goertz of the Cowley County Historical Society. Officially designated the “Stone Bridge Capital of Kansas” by the Kansas legislature in 2016, Cowley County boasts 18 unique stone arch bridges open to the public. “The stones allowed many of the bridges to survive floods for more than a century,” Goertz says, “and many are still viable structures in daily use.” Most are approved for passenger vehicles, though heavy farm equipment and buses are generally banned from using them. ![]() More than 100 years after they were built, the bridges are inspected regularly by county officials. This change ended the construction of new limestone stone arch bridges. Longtime residents have fond memories of swimming in the waters around many of the bridges, swinging from ropes suspended from the large sycamore trees, and washing their cars on the solid rock outcroppings.Ĭowley County continued to build stone bridges until concrete bridges became the standard in the 1920s and the state engineer’s specifications required concrete for bridge constructions. ![]() In addition, the bridge locations provided a new place for baptisms, social gatherings, even modest bathing, although the water was usually cold. When a newly constructed bridge was opened to traffic, it was a festive occasion because it shortened the routes between communities. “Engineers were brought on-site to probe for bedrock to make certain that the footings of the bridges were firmly located.” “The limestone was all quarried locally, within a close proximity to the bridge site, and all the labor was done by local men who were familiar with stonework,” Goertz explains. ![]() Some of the stones used in construction were over nine feet long and weighed many tons, but using the local limestone reduced the need for long-distance transportation of raw materials. Other counties used stone arch bridges to cover small culverts but chose to use the iron truss bridge structure for larger streams. The lengths of some of the stone bridges are in excess of 60 feet, supported by two or even three arches. “Sharp developed and perfected the stone arch bridge design. He used local limestone in long, arching stretches. Walter Sharp, a prominent architect from El Dorado who settled in Winfield in the early 1900s, built most of these bridges. More than half of those original stone arch bridges were lost to flooding, time, and the increasing size and weight of the traffic, but local volunteers and officials are committed to preserving the surviving bridges and sharing them with visitors.Īccording to Cindy Goertz, a longtime member of the Cowley County Historical Society Board, there are more limestone arch bridges on Cowley County public roads than in any other county in the state. This is just one of the approximately 40 stone bridges built in Cowley County after 1901 and placed on strategic sites that were natural narrows used by the locals to ford creeks. Practically, it is time-proven and sturdy, having for more than a century allowed passage across a creek and eliminated long, roundabout routes that would add on some 20 miles of travel. Architecturally, it is a graceful structure whose gentle, flowing arches seem to defy gravity. It’s a beautiful spring day as we travel one of the back roads of Cowley County and park our car to inspect and appreciate another stone bridge. Travel back 100 years to the era of hand-built limestone bridges of Cowley County, standing as monuments to a Kansas architect and his stoneworkers
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