Morley Bridge
About this property
The Morley Bridge, also known as the Romley Bridge, located near Romlee in Chaffee County, Colorado, is a wrought-iron pin-connected Pratt truss bridge that was built in 1881. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2003. The bridge has a 13.2-foot-wide (4.0 m) timber deck roadway and is 83 feet (25 m) long, with a span of 80 feet (24 m) on its Pratt trusses. It has a timber deck and stone masonry wing walls and abutments. It was designed and constructed by Denver, South Park and Pacific Railroad, and was fabricated by New Jersey Steel and Iron Company (a company based in Trenton, New Jersey). It was built as part of railway construction towards Alpine Pass in 1881 near what was then known as Morley ("also called Red Town because all the buildings were painted red, and later renamed Romley in 1897"). A tunnel at Alpine Pass was completed in 1882 and was then the highest elevation tunnel in North America. The first train from Nathrop, Colorado, to Gunnison, Colorado, went through in 1892. The railway served mines in the area until this section of railway was closed in 1926, and the bridge then was converted to a county road bridge. It carried vehicle traffic until 1992 when it was bypassed and was converted to a pedestrian bridge. According to History Colorado, the bridge is Colorado's "oldest dateable vehicular truss" and "one of Colorado's most important spans". It is "one of the few remaining truss bridges [in Colorado] with both wrought and cast iron components, ... [and] also the only known pin-connected deck truss in the state. The bridge spans Pomeroy Gulch, and is located off Chaffee County Road 297 at milepost 2.40, 2.2 miles (3.5 km) southwest of St. Elmo, Colorado.
Location
Categories
Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).
Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Everything a full report reveals about Morley Bridge
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Questions about this property
When was Morley Bridge listed on the National Register?
Morley Bridge was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on August 13, 2003.
What type of historic resource is Morley Bridge?
Morley Bridge is classified as a structure in the National Register of Historic Places.
What is the period of significance for Morley Bridge?
The period of significance for Morley Bridge is recorded as the industrial era.
Can I research the history near Morley Bridge?
Yes. Aubrey Research reports search National Register listings, battlefield records, land patents, and other primary historical sources within any radius of a US address. A report for an address near Morley Bridge will include this listing and all other historical records in the area.
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