Spans in Time: A History of Nebraska Bridges (review)

Spans in Time: A History of Nebraska Bridges. Edited by James E. Potter and L. Robert Puschendorf. Lincoln: Nebraska State Historical Society and Nebraska Department of Roads, 1999. Pp. v+106. $21.95.

Spans in Time handsomely showcases the results of a statewide inventory of historic bridges funded by the Federal Highway Administration and completed in 1991 by two firms, Fraser Design of Loveland, Colorado, and Hess, Roise and Company of Minneapolis. The book presents a brief history of Nebraska bridges, derived from a historic overview prepared by Charlene K. Roise and adapted for publication by Clayton B. Fraser. There then follow an appendix consisting of a partial list of Nebraska bridge builders and contractors, endnotes, a select inventory of historic bridges arranged alphabetically by county, and, finally, a small section titled "Other Bridges." (Briefly described but not illustrated, these presumably fall into that gray area between "notable" and "significant," although this is not explained in the text.)

Nebraska's abundant waterways, unstable soil conditions, and extreme weather challenged the ingenuity of bridge builders. Spans in Time competently and succinctly traces the evolution of bridge construction, from temporary timber-and-brush wagon bridges of the territorial era (1854-67) through the triumph of the steel deck girder after World War II. In the late nineteenth century, Nebraska was fertile territory for such national giants as the King Bridge Company of Cleveland and the Wrought Iron Bridge Company of Canton, Ohio, whose field agents marketed standard structural types, especially Pratt and bowstring arch trusses, to county officials. In the early twentieth century, the state readily embraced concrete technology; while metal and, often, lumber had to be imported, the state was abundantly supplied with the raw materials for cement. The transverse-joist girder, invented and popularized here, found favor in the 1920s, but by 1932 the state highway department pronounced the now ubiquitous steel deck girder--cheap to fabricate and maintain, readily adapted to skewed crossings, and well suited to Nebraska's wide, shallow streams--"one of the most permanent and adequate types of structure yet devised" (p. 48). The increasingly rapid replacement of Nebraska's diverse historic spans, the book concludes, creates an urgent need to preserve the survivors.

Despite its workmanlike text and pleasing design, Spans in Time has numerous deficiencies. There are no maps to show the state's topographical features, the location of counties, or the location and distribution of the inventoried bridges. Photographs are often undated, captions thin. The provenance of the builders' plates that adorn the endnotes is not identified, and the bridges included in the inventory are not included in the index. Finally, the book says little about the meaning of the state's historic spans in human terms--their impact on transportation, commerce, agriculture, industry, and community life. The reader is left to wonder who these spans served, and how.

Carol Poh Miller

Ms. Miller is a historical consultant in Cleveland, Ohio, and current president of the Society for Industrial Archeology.

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