The website's mission, content, webmaster and year-end report.

Mission Statement
	The ultimate goal of this website is to promote preservation of historic bridges. Iron bridges are the rarest of all America's bridges yet iron and old steel bridges are being lost at an alarming rate. I understand that not all these bridges can be saved but often there is indiscriminate demolition of metal bridges - including rare examples listed by the National Register of Historic Places. Without greater public awareness the communities that are home to these metal bridges will recognize too late that some are priceless artifacts.

Mission Statement

The ultimate goal of this website is to promote preservation of historic bridges. Iron bridges are the rarest of all America's bridges yet iron and old steel bridges are being lost at an alarming rate. I understand that not all these bridges can be saved but often there is indiscriminate demolition of metal bridges - including rare examples listed by the National Register of Historic Places. Without greater public awareness the communities that are home to these metal bridges will recognize too late that some are priceless artifacts.

Website Content

The focus of this website is on metal truss bridges, which includes arch, cantilever, suspension and other bridges that incorporate truss-work. Some metal stringer (beam) bridges also may be included when interesting historically or structurally. A companion website is devoted to concrete and stone arch bridges.

This website attempts to document the locations of all surviving vehicular and pedestrian bridges built in Ohio before 1942. The cut-off date is somewhat arbitrary but was selected because bridge construction came to a virtual stop during WW II and a transition to welded trusses was almost complete when construction resumed. Welded truss bridges are still being built in Ohio. After the war a further demise of the truss bridge resulted from increased utilization of continuous steel beam and reinforced concrete bridges.

The Bridge List was compiled from official public bridge inventory reports (see Bibliography) augmented by many other sources including "finds" by individuals. The private or abandoned public bridges on the list are not on current government inventories.

A major challenge faced in compiling this data has been the inaccuracy of the official bridge inventories. A common error is misclassification of bridges as existing when in fact they have been replaced or removed. A large proportion of bridges reported as extant ( as high as 50% ) are in reality gone. I have also noted that the build dates quoted by the bridge inventories are often incorrect as judged from the structure of the bridge. For example. pinned lower chords were rarely used after 1920 and welded trusses were not utilized before 1928 (but were rapidly adopted during the 30's and were standard in the 40's). However, build dates may not be consistent with these rules. Reported build dates of 1900 and 1940 are disproportionately common and especially suspect. They seem to have been used as default guesses by the county when good information was lacking. Quoted build dates also are sometimes confused with reconstruction / rehabilitation dates or the date the bridge was moved to its present site.

The latitude/longitude coordinates of the bridges were determined from topological maps (Delorme, Topo USA 5.0) of the bridge roadway and intersect or by a GPS reading at the bridge site. These coordinates were used to mark the bridge locations on google maps using hyperlinks. Note that in some cases the bridge may appear shifted from the roadway due to small differences between the google and Delorme maps.

Descriptions of the history and structural details of the bridges are beyond the scope of this project. This information may be available in the included references and bibliography. If the bridge terminology used by this website is not familiar check out the background material or other references on the Links page.

This project is being supported by many people whom I have listed on the Thank You page. I am especially appreciative of those enthusiasts who find or visit bridges to check their status. Everyone is encouraged to participate in this search and send information and photographs to: webmaster. I'd especially like to hear of any old bridges you know about that are not listed.

The 2007 "State of the Website" Report The Bridge List continued to grow throughout 2007. Many of the new additions were private or abandoned bridges found by contributors. Deletions from the Bridge List also continued unabated mostly as a result of "upgrades" (destruction) by the counties. The need for preservation of historic metal bridges still has not reached the same level of public consciousness as it has for covered bridges. The "cute-puppy" factor that embraces wooden bridges does not seem to extend to metal bridges. So far about 900 sites have been visited to check bridge status. I have not done this alone. The many contributors are listed on the Thank You page. Some of these individuals; namely: Jeremy Clevenger, Janis Ford, Nathan Holth, Rick McOmber, Don O'Brien, Todd Wilson and Bobby have made numerous contributions and deserve special recognition. I hope they gain as much from the information on this website as they have contributed! As the number of unconfirmed bridges has shrunk I have modified the Bridge List in order to keep it active. In February over 150 bridges were added to the list by changing the cut-off date from 1919 to 1941 (inclusive). I was missing too many fine examples with the earlier date! More recently I have included vehicular bridges over railways and roadways rather than just waterways. There may be more changes in 2008.
Webmaster
	This website is an interest (well maybe it's an obsession) that came about as a result of my passion for riding a motorcycle on the rural roads of Ohio. I like to explore all types of old bridges so have a need to know their locations. I found many websites about covered bridges but little about metal truss bridges. This lack of information motivated me to undertake this website. Oldohiobridges.com was launched May 2005 and grew out of a small website hosted on roadrunner begun the year before. If you visit here often you will notice changes as I fine tune the presentation. However, I intend to keep this website focused on the relatively narrow mission of documenting the locations of Ohio's old bridges. There are already enough websites abandoned because they outgrew someone's ability to maintain with the time and resources available.

The 2007 "State of the Website" Report

The Bridge List continued to grow throughout 2007. Many of the new additions were private or abandoned bridges found by contributors. Deletions from the Bridge List also continued unabated mostly as a result of "upgrades" (destruction) by the counties. The need for preservation of historic metal bridges still has not reached the same level of public consciousness as it has for covered bridges. The "cute-puppy" factor that embraces wooden bridges does not seem to extend to metal bridges.

So far about 900 sites have been visited to check bridge status. I have not done this alone. The many contributors are listed on the Thank You page. Some of these individuals; namely: Jeremy Clevenger, Janis Ford, Nathan Holth, Rick McOmber, Don O'Brien, Todd Wilson and Bobby have made numerous contributions and deserve special recognition. I hope they gain as much from the information on this website as they have contributed!

As the number of unconfirmed bridges has shrunk I have modified the Bridge List in order to keep it active. In February over 150 bridges were added to the list by changing the cut-off date from 1919 to 1941 (inclusive). I was missing too many fine examples with the earlier date! More recently I have included vehicular bridges over railways and roadways rather than just waterways. There may be more changes in 2008.

Webmaster

This website is an interest (well maybe it's an obsession) that came about as a result of my passion for riding a motorcycle on the rural roads of Ohio. I like to explore all types of old bridges so have a need to know their locations. I found many websites about covered bridges but little about metal truss bridges. This lack of information motivated me to undertake this website.

Oldohiobridges.com was launched May 2005 and grew out of a small website hosted on roadrunner begun the year before. If you visit here often you will notice changes as I fine tune the presentation. However, I intend to keep this website focused on the relatively narrow mission of documenting the locations of Ohio's old bridges. There are already enough websites abandoned because they outgrew someone's ability to maintain with the time and resources available.