Skip to main content

1906 North Fork Road Bridge Ruins

By
Downstream from the Friant Dam is North Fork Road which crosses the San Joaquin River on a bridge which was completed in 1952.  Downstream from said 1952 bridge is an older right-of-way and very apparent bridge ruin which caught my eye on many a trip past Millerton Lake.


It turns out that particular bridge ruin is the reinforced concrete 1906 North Fork Road Bridge.  The 1906 North Fork Road Bridge was the first reinforced concrete bridge in Fresno County was the replacement of a wooden structure that was built in 1883.  During the collapse of the 1889 Lanes Bridge in 1940 the 1906 North Fork Road Bridge became Temporary California State Route 41 until a replacement structure was open in 1941.  Somehow despite the Friant Dam being completed in 1949 flood waters downstream from the structure became bad enough in 1951 to wipe out the 1906 North Fork Road Bridge.  Oddly rather removing the 1906 structure when the 1952 replacement was built it was instead left in the San Joaquin River as it was.  The ruins are easily viewed from the 1952 bridge by pulling over to the south shoulder.





Apparently the canyon that the Friant Dam and North Fork Road dips into was once called Jenny Lind Canyon.  The 1883 wooden bridge apparently shared the name of the Canyon and was the first bridge crossing of the San Joaquin River in Fresno County.  At the time the 1883 Jenny Lind Bridge was built the village Friant was still known as Hamptonville.  Hamptonville was established as a ferry crossing of the San Joaquin River in 1852.


Fortunately the 1906 North Fork Bridge collapsed at the right time because the 1952 replacement still has classic California highway design flair.



For perspective the Friant Dam literally is within walking distance to the north of both the 1906 and 1952 North Fork Road bridges.





It wasn't easy compiling documentation on the 1906 bridge but the Lanes Bridge article I cited in the previous blog mentions it.  I was also able to find partial information on the 1906 bridge on Bridgehunter.com.

Lanes Bridge Spanned Decades

Bridge Hunter on 1906 North Fork Road Bridge
Labels:

Comments

AnnDee4444 said…
This was also know as the Pollasky bridge, due Friant still being named Pollasky until 1907.

Page 23 of this PDF has a good photo of this bridge: http://www.survivorlibrary.com/library/why_the_concrete_bridge_is_replacing_other_forms_1913.pdf
4:51 PM
Challenger Tom said…
Definitely appreciate the link, I posted a snip of the photo in the PDF to the Gribblenation Facebook page.
5:36 PM
AnnDee4444 said…
I can't find anything on a Jenny Lind bridge crossing the San Joaquin River, and I believe this is an error in the article.

There is a Jenny Lind bridge that crosses the Calaveras River, near the town of Milton (which is close in spelling to Millerton). Bridge is located here: https://maps.app.goo.gl/9mxmVLwqyjBBo6U98
6:43 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Paper Highways: The Unbuilt New Orleans Bypass (Proposed I-410)

By
  There are many examples around the United States of proposed freeway corridors in urban areas that never saw the light of day for one reason or another. They all fall somewhere in between the little-known and the infamous and from the mundane to the spectacular. One of the more obscure and interesting examples of such a project is the short-lived idea to construct a southern beltway for the New Orleans metropolitan area in the 1960s and 70s. Greater New Orleans and its surrounding area grew rapidly in the years after World War II, as suburban sprawl encroached on the historically rural downriver parishes around the city. In response to the development of the region’s Westbank and the emergence of communities in St. Charles and St. John the Baptist Parishes as viable suburban communities during this period, regional planners began to consider concepts for new infrastructure projects to serve this growing population.  The idea for a circular freeway around the southern perimeter of t
Post a Comment
Read more

Hernando de Soto Bridge (Memphis, TN)

By
The newest of the bridges that span the lower Mississippi River at Memphis, the Hernando de Soto Bridge was completed in 1973 and carries Interstate 40 between downtown Memphis and West Memphis, AR. The bridge’s signature M-shaped superstructure makes it an instantly recognizable landmark in the city and one of the most visually unique bridges on the Mississippi River. As early as 1953, Memphis city planners recommended the construction of a second highway bridge across the Mississippi River to connect the city with West Memphis, AR. The Memphis & Arkansas Bridge had been completed only four years earlier a couple miles downriver from downtown, however it was expected that long-term growth in the metro area would warrant the construction of an additional bridge, the fourth crossing of the Mississippi River to be built at Memphis, in the not-too-distant future. Unlike the previous three Mississippi River bridges to be built the city, the location chosen for this bridge was about two
1 comment
Read more

Memphis & Arkansas Bridge (Memphis, TN)

By
  Like the expansion of the railroads the previous century, the modernization of the country’s highway infrastructure in the early and mid 20th Century required the construction of new landmark bridges along the lower Mississippi River (and nation-wide for that matter) that would facilitate the expected growth in overall traffic demand in ensuing decades. While this new movement had been anticipated to some extent in the Memphis area with the design of the Harahan Bridge, neither it nor its neighbor the older Frisco Bridge were capable of accommodating the sharp rise in the popularity and demand of the automobile as a mode of cross-river transportation during the Great Depression. As was the case 30 years prior, the solution in the 1940s was to construct a new bridge in the same general location as its predecessors, only this time the bridge would be the first built exclusively for vehicle traffic. This bridge, the Memphis & Arkansas Bridge, was completed in 1949 and was the third
Post a Comment
Read more