Brower Road Duggins Run Bridge

Information and Findings From Ohio's Historic Bridge Inventory

Setting/Context

The bridge carries a 2 lane road over a stream in a rural setting with scattered 20th century residences.

Physical Description

The skewed, 1-span, 31'-long steel stringer bridge has riveted angle railings, concrete deck, channel fascia beams, I beam interior lines of beams, transverse angle bracing attached by clips to the bottom flanges of the beams, and is supported on one stone abutment and one concrete abutment.

Summary of Significance

The rolled steel stringer bridge built ca. 1920 is an undistinguished example of the state's most common pre-1961 bridge type. Although complete, the county retains no records that can substantiate the date or builder, thus limiting the bridge's significance as a prototypical example. There are more than 3,000 examples dating from about 1900 to 1960. The bridge is not historically significant for its technology or context. More distinguished examples better represent the steel stringer bridge type's contributions to the development of the state's road systems.

Steel stringer bridges consist of a series of parallel longitudinal steel beams supporting a deck, usually of reinforced concrete. They are by far the most common inventoried highway bridge type over 20' long in Ohio with approximately 3,000 extant examples dating from circa 1895 to 1961 (Phase 1A, 2008). The reasons for this are several, including simplicity and adaptability to standardized designs, economy of construction, and the ability to re-use beams when a bridge is widened or replaced. Also not to be discounted is the fact that Ohio historically is a steel state with numerous mills. The steel stringer bridge continues to be built today, making it one of the longest-lived bridge technologies in modern times.

Ohio's technologically significant examples of the steel stringer technology tend to be those unaltered examples dating to the early period of use and development in the late 19th century and standardization during the first decades of the 20th century. About 80 surviving examples are documented to predate 1921. Some earlier examples represent design variations, such as concrete-encased beams or concrete jack arch decks. Later examples may represent important refinements, particularly the first applications of continuous designs in the early to mid 1930s, but the tendency is for the population to be highly undifferentiated; only a very few steel stringer bridges rise to levels of historical or technological distinction.

Bridge Considered Historic By Survey: No