Jasper County Democrat, Volume 12, Number 43, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 September 1909 — TO RE-CONSTRUCT BURKE’S BRIDGE [ARTICLE]

TO RE-CONSTRUCT BURKE’S BRIDGE

Longest Wooden Wagon Bridge In Indiana To Be Reduced In J Length. J* Burk’s bridge 4% miles north of Rensselaer, on the gravel road, is to be reconstructed and reduced in length from 940 feet to about half that length. This bridge crosses the Iroquois river in a swampy piece of ground and has beeq a source of considerable expense to the county in years gone by because of the inability to retain the filling hauled in for the approaches, and wood piling was finally used for the entire distance and sills and planking placed The bridge has long been known as the longest wooden wagon bridge in the state. Since the dredging of the upper Iroquois this quagmire has dried out wonderfully, and it is now thought that a grade can be retained on the north side almost up to the channel, the piling now there being a help to retaining same. A new wooden span some 80 feet in length will then be put across the channel and the south side repaired and possibly reduced somewhat in length, so that when completed the bridge will only be about one-half its present length. The county council appropriated $1,300 for the improvements at the session this week. It is the intention, we understand, to have the Sternberg dredge, now at work recleaning the upper Iroquois, to throw up considerable of the material for the new grade when it gets to this point.