Wadhams Rd. / Pine River

County: St. Clair

City/Township: St. Clair Twp.

Location: Wadhams Rd. / Pine River

Year Built: 1927

About this Bridge:
The Wadhams Road Bridge merits National Register designation as one of the few surviving multiple-span structures of its type, the state's unique curved-chord through girder. The Michigan State Highway Department developed its standard for the curved-chord through girder in the 1921-1922 biennium, and in 1922 built the first structure of this design, a 90-foot span over the Raisin River at Tecumseh. Concrete through-girder bridges fell from favor by the end of that decade because they could not be widened to accommodate increasing traffic volumes and loads.

The state highway department let a contract for the construction of the Wadhams Road Bridge in the summer of 1927. The contract was awarded to Walter Toebe and Company of Shingleton, Michigan, for $37,679. The estimated cost of cement was an additional $2,791. The department's 1927-1928 lists the total cost of the structure as $47,971. The project was a state reward bridge, a joint project of the state highway department and the St. Clair County Road Commission. Each paid half the cost of construction. Although the bridge is a relatively late example of the curved chord through-girder design, it is one of the few extant multiple-span bridges of its type.