Skip to main content

1885 Firebaugh Drawbridge

By
This past week I stumbled upon the ruins of the 1885 Firebaugh Drawbridge over the San Joaquin River in western Fresno County, California.


The 1885 Firebaugh Drawbridge was a replacement for Firebaugh's Ferry which had been in place since 1854.  I previously wrote about Firebaugh's Ferry which can be found here.

November Bay Area Trip Part 9; Firebaugh's Ferry

The 1885 Firebaugh Drawbridge was known locally as the Great Drawbridge of Firebaugh and was a swing span.  The 1885 Firebaugh Drawbridge was along 12th Street at the San Joaquin River and measured 670 feet in length.  The 1885 Firebaugh Drawbridge originally connect to California State Route 33 via 12th Street at O Street in downtown Firebaugh.  The ruins of the 1885 Firebaugh Drawbridge can be just north of 13th Street in the Firebaugh Rodeo Grounds.





The spindle for the draw span on the 1885 Firebaugh Bridge is still present in the San Joaquin River.  According to bridgehunter.com the Firebaugh Drawbridge didn't open from 1908 to 1948 due to water flow on the San Joaquin River being controlled upsteam.  Agricultural division in the and the progression of the Big Creek Project early 20th century greatly reduced the flow of the San Joaquin River in San Joaquin Valley.  The San Joaquin River was once navigable through much of its course at low elevations but is no longer aside from small crafts.



The 1885 Firebaugh Drawbridge was replaced by a new span on 13th Street.  The 1948 span has since been replaced by a modern structure.  Firebaugh's Ferry would have been located between the 1885 Firebaugh Bridge and the 13th Street Bridge.



I noticed some interesting oddities near the 1885 Firebaugh Drawbridge ruins.  One of the nearby murals depicted the Butterland Overland Mail Route which Firebaugh's Ferry was a part of.  A nearby building was using a California State Automobile Association sourced sign.  The sign would have been located on what was California State Route 33 northbound at 12th Street and O Street in downtown in Firebaugh.



The bridgehunter.com article on the 1885 Firebaugh Drawbridge can be found here.

bridgehunter.com on the 1885 Firebaugh Drawbridge

This 1893 map of Fresno County depicts the City of Firebaugh and the 1885 Firebaugh Drawbridge crossing the San Joaquin River.

1893 Fresno County Sectional Map 

A picture of the 1885 Firebaugh Drawbridge can be viewed at the Chevron located at 12th Street and CA 33.

Labels:

Comments

Unknown said…
Thank you, for writing this article. As I reqd it, I am sitting here, in the park, om a bench, looking out at the remains of the bridge. I was once a Firebaugh resident, but still enjoy just sitting here, and looking out at the river, whenever I have achnce to visit. The City of Firebaugh, has quite some stories to tell, dating back to at least the mid 1800's.
3:13 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