Bridges

I love historical bridges and if I can walk under them and explore - even better.  There are two in Arizona that I explored recently, the McPhaul Bridge of Yuma AZ and the Gillespie Dam Bridge of Arlington AZ.

The McPhaul Bridge is also know as the bridge to nowhere.  It is an 800 foot long suspension bridge which spanned the Gila River when it was built in 1929 and was named McPhaul Bridge in honor of Henry Harrison McPhaul, “the only Yuma resident who ever became an Arizona Ranger.”  But it was consider to be too flimsy for modern traffic, and when a dam was built upstream in 1968 the river was diverted and the highway was rerouted over a much smaller bridge....  which was destroyed in a flood.  The McPhaul Bridge stood tall.

The Gillespie Dam Bridge is a through truss bridge spanning the Gila River in Maricopa County, Arizona. The bridge was constructed to bypass a concrete apron through the river in front of the Gillespie Dam. Construction of the bridge started in 1925 and completed in 1927. From its opening until 1956, the bridge was part of US Route 80.