Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 191, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 August 1913 — LAFAYETTE TO HAVE FIGHT ABOUT BRIDGE. [ARTICLE]

LAFAYETTE TO HAVE FIGHT ABOUT BRIDGE.

Engineer Says Proposed Structure Will No More Stand Flood Than Old One.

The bridge question in Tippecanoe county, which was believed to .have been settled has again become a live question and it is possible that plhns for the concrete bridge to replace the damaged Main street bridge, which have been accepted by the board of county commissioners, may not be the plans for the bridge which will be erected. It has resolved into a fight between Profs. Hatt and Smith of Purdue. Everett Vawter of the board of engineers and Wallace Marshall, president of the Lafayette Engineering Company. Mr. Marshall says that the proposed Main street bridge would not have a much more free and unobstructed water’space than the present bridge, which failed to stand the high water of March.

Marshall says that he had three engineers at work measuring the old bridge and working out the difference betwee.i it and the proposed new bridge, and that the report submitted to him showed that the old bridge would carry’ free 18,434 cubic feet of water and that but 17,066 feet of cubic water would z pass under the new bridge. Marshall added that if the water should rise to the height of the flood of last spring the proposed bridge would be torn down without doubt. Vawter, spehklng for the Pudue engineers and himself, said that the new bridge will be absolutely safe and will carry free more water than has ever been seen in the Wabash River here. The county commissioners are up in the air and do not at present know what they will do.