Year constructed: 1936
Alternate name: Main Street Bridge
Bridge type: Concrete Rigid Frame
National Register of Historic Places status: Listed
Length: 150 feet
Width: 20 feet
Spans: 2
FHWA: 000110
Jurisdiction: City of Alden
Location: Main Street over the Iowa River in Alden, Section 18, T89N-R21W (Alden Township)
Details
The bridge over the Iowa River in Alden formed a longstanding link for the two sides of the small town, but by the mid-1930s the existing wood structure had "long since seen its best day," according to the Alden Times. In 1935, Hardin County moved to replace it and the bridge at Steamboat Rock. The county sought financial assistance for construction of the two structures from the Works Progress Administration, securing approval from that agency in October 1935. The projects were to be a great boon for Alden's unemployed, who would be used as a day labor to help construct the concrete bridge over the Iowa River. The estimated cost for the 150-foot-long structure at Alden was $20,000, $11,163 of which was to be funded by a WPA grant, with the remainder to be financed by Hardin County.
The Iowa State Highway Commission designed the Alden Bridge as a concrete rigid-frame structure, comprised of two spans supported by a concrete substructure. The selection of concrete as the construction material for several Depression-era, WPA-funded bridges was not coincidental; concrete took more employment in building than steel construction. Hardin County advertised for competitive bids and awarded the contract to Weldon Brothers Construction Company of Iowa Falls for a total of $11,922. The WPA workers were to be supervised by Weldon Brothers; but they would be paid by the federal government. Work on the substructure began in January of 1936, and the bridge was completed the same year. The town officially dedicated the bridge on July 4, 1936, with thousands of citizens in attendance. Consisting of a two-span deck girder supported by a concrete substructure, the Alden Bridge is lit at night by four electroliers (two at each approach) and features ornamental steel guardrails and pedestrian sidewalks at either side of the roadway. Since its completion in 1936, the Alden Bridge has carried fairly heavy urban traffic in northwestern Hardin County.
The Alden Bridge was among the first projects undertaken by the WPA in Iowa. was one of the first concrete rigid-frame structures designed by ISHC. The concrete rigid-frame configuration, developed in Westchester County, New York, in the early 1930s, became especially popular for federal relief projects during the 1930s. Both picturesque and practical, the flat-arched appealed to proponents of urban beautification. The Iowa State Highway Commission, like many state highway departments, built a tentative number of rigid frames in the 1930s, of which the Alden Bridge is a distinguished, early example [adapted from Crow-Dolby and Fraser 1992, Landler and Pitner 1995].