Metal Truss Bridges

Frank and George Austin, originally salesmen for an Iowa-based bridge company, revolutionized Texas’s infrastructure development when, in 1910, they established the state’s only steel plant dedicated to metal truss bridges. At the time, all trusses first had to be fabricated in East Coast or Midwest foundries and then shipped by rail to Texas, a process that could take weeks or months.

The brothers’ Dallas plant, which produced more than a million pounds of steel by 1915, could deliver the same product in less than a week. The Austin Brothers also produced a mail order catalogue of standard bridges and a magazine called The Highways, which they mailed to Texas’ county commissioners every month. This aggressive marketing campaign worked, and by the 1930s, the company had expanded into concrete and suspension bridges. Marketing themselves as “the right bridges for the right places,” the Austin Brothers Bridge Company secured more than 3,000 bridge contracts by 1945; more than 200 of their bridges still stand in Texas.

The Austin Brothers originally built the Rector Road Bridge across Denton County’s Clear Creek in 1907, at a time when the brothers were still forced to buy bridges from outside the state. This bridge was one of several dozen constructed in Denton between 1880 and 1910 to keep pace with the county’s burgeoning population and economy. The Rector Road Bridge was so important to the Denton community that local citizens donated $1,200 of the total cost of $1,664. A concrete bridge replaced this Pratt truss in 2005. The Rector Road Bridge's relocation to Guyer High School is an excellent example of the repurposing and preservation of historic truss bridges.

This 1935 Austin Brothers bridge in Foard County originally spanned Little Good Creek. The 80-foot Warren pony truss followed the company’s “80-A” standard design, and timber approaches connected it to the creek bank. In 2001, the bridge was moved to a park in nearby Crowell, Texas.

In 1921, the Austin Brothers Bridge Company built the Willow Creek Bridge to carry the Bankhead Highway, the nation’s first paved transcontinental highway, across Willow Creek in Parker County. Federal aid money helped to build this 60-foot Warren pony truss, which followed standard Texas Highway Department designs. It represents the beginning of an integrated national highway system and the end of eccentric local design. After a failed relocation attempt, the Willow Creek Bridge was demolished in 2002.

The Austin Brothers built the massive Commerce Street Viaduct in Dallas to withstand flooding of the Trinity River. The viaduct, built at a time when Dallas boosters still hoped the Trinity could be made navigable, is tall enough for ship traffic. County officials rushed to complete this 2000 foot long concrete and steel girder bridge just before election day. Less than 24 hours after the bridge’s opening on July 24, 1930, a truck became stuck on one of the earthen approaches and the bridge was closed for further construction until the end of the year. The completion of the Commerce Street Bridge marked Austin Brothers transition into larger and more diverse projects.

The Regency Suspension Bridge spans 340 feet over the Colorado River between Mills and San Saba Counties. This 1939 Austin Brothers bridge was the last suspension bridge built in rural Texas. Locally known as the “Swinging Bridge,” it has only one lane but still carries car traffic after being refurbished in 1999. Read more about suspension bridges.

The lenticular truss is a unique design in which both the top and bottom chords are curved, giving the truss an oval or lens shape. Lenticular trusses used less material than a standard Pratt or Howe configuration, but their popularity was limited by the high degree of workmanship needed to achieve the unique lens shape. The photo at left, of the Kelley Crossing Bridge near Lockhart, clearly displays the lens shape that gives the lenticular truss its name.

In the United States, lenticular trusses were almost exclusively built by the Berlin Iron Bridge Company of East Berlin, Connecticut. Several of the Berlin Company’s bridges had decorative towers, including the Augusta Street Bridge in San Antonio, shown at left. Although the company mostly did business in New England, they had one salesman in Texas. William Payson of Edna, Texas sold more than a dozen bridges for the Berlin Bridge Co. Payson’s success was probably due more to his questionable tactics than to his bridges’ sound engineering. The Market Street Bridge cost the City of San Antonio $12,000, nearly twice the standard market price. Bridge agents commonly (but illegally) met before bid deadlines to decide which of them would submit the lowest bid. Despite accusations of misdeed, Payson sold Berlin bridges across the state. Eight of these bridges are still standing in Texas, the only remaining lenticular trusses west of the Mississippi.

Payson sold the Crockett Street Bridge to the City of San Antonio for $13,000 in 1891 during the administration of the notoriously corrupt Mayor Bryan Callaghan. Upon the bridge’s completion, the city refused to hand over the money, accusing Payson of paying other bridge companies to overbid the job. The court ruled that the contract was invalid on a technicality, and nothing was ever proven against Payson.

The Berlin lenticular truss on Commerce Street carried traffic into downtown San Antonio beginning in 1881. The bridge was a famous haunt of local artists, including O Henry, who set several of his stories in the area. The City of San Antonio moved the Commerce Street bridge to this location on Johnson Street in 1914; although the original truss has been replaced its impressive decorative towers, or finials, still remain.

The Brackenridge Park Bridge is easily the most impressive lenticular truss in Texas. The National Youth Administration relocated the bridge from St. Mary’s Street to its current location in 1937 as part of a New Deal city revitalization project.