Bauer Rd. / Looking Glass River

County: Calhoun

City/Township: Watertown Twp.

Location: Bridge Park

Year Built: 1880

About this Bridge:
The Bauer Road Bridge is one of only two known surviving examples of through truss spans built in Michigan by the Penn Bridge Works of Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania, an important eastern bridge company in the nineteenth century.

This bridge will soon reside at the Historic Bridge Park of Calhoun County Community Development. Many historic bridges, throughout Michigan, are being closed due to lack of structural integrity. The MDOT Critical Bridge Program funds the replacement of these bridges, but the question of what to do with the historic bridge still remains. The Historic Bridge Park allows the history and the technology and skill involved in designing and constructing these bridges to be preserved at a site accessible to the public.