"Configured as a pin-connected Whipple (or double-intersection Pratt) through truss, the Hardin City Bridge is one of only eight such structures remaining in Iowa. It is the only bridge in Iowa by the short-lived Western Bridge Works, Fort Wayne, Indiana. With its Whipple web configuration, cast-iron hip blocks and bearing shoes, and rolled wrought-iron components, the Hardin City Bridge typifies wagon bridge construction of the late 1870s."In April of 1879 the suprevisors awarded the contract to Western Bridge Works of Fort Wayne, Indiana. Using cast-iron joint blocks and wrought-iron structural sections produced by the Passaic Rolling Mills of Peterson, New Jersey, and the Pottsville (Pennsylvania) Rolling Mills, Western Bridge completed its erection of the 140' pin-connected truss late that year at a cost of $3145.38.
"This document was prepared as part of the Iowa Historic Bridges Recording Project performed durng the Summer of 1995 by the Historic American Engineering Record (HAER). The project was sponsored by the Iowa Department of Transportation. (IDOT). Preliminary research on this bridge was performed by Clayton B. Fraser of Fraserdesign, Loveland, CO."
Historian: Leslie Pitner, August 1995
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