West Jefferson Avenue-Rouge River Bridge

About this property

The West Jefferson Avenue–Rouge River Bridge is a historic double-leaf bascule bridge in Wayne County, Michigan, at the border of the cities of Detroit and River Rouge. The bridge carries Jefferson Avenue, a major thoroughfare in Southwest Detroit, over the River Rouge, an important inland route for lake freighters. The bridge was built in 1922, and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2000. Before the current bridges crossing the Rouge River at West Jefferson and Fort Streets were built, the two crossings were served by narrow swing bridges. By the late 1910s, these spans urgently needed replacing, in large part because they interfered with the Federal government's plans to dredge the Rouge River to provide freighter access to the Ford River Rouge Complex. Both the city of Detroit (who was responsible for maintaining the bridges) and Wayne County agreed that the county could better oversee the construction, but legal restrictions prohibited county involvement until state law was changed in 1919. With the new legislation in place, plans were drawn up in 1920 for a "Chicago city type of single trunnion, double-leaf bascule bridge" for each bridge. This design, prototyped by the 1902 Cortland Street Drawbridge, is optimized for tight spaces, and features a hidden counterweight that descends into a pit when the bridge opens. The cost for the pair of bridges was estimated at $2 million. A bond issue to fund construction was approved by Wayne County voters, and an alternate route onto which Jefferson Avenue traffic could be shunted was devised. Wayne County obtained an old truss, originally used by the Michigan Central Railroad upstream of Jefferson, and floated it downstream to a location 200 yards north of Jefferson. The old Jefferson Avenue bridge was closed and the detour opened on November 13, 1920. Construction on the bridge commenced immediately. Each leaf was to be supported by four 12-foot-square concrete footings, sunk to the bedrock 70 feet (21 m) below the water line. The footings supported a concrete pit measuring 50 by 80 feet (24 m) which housed the counterweights and machinery. Wayne County contracted with the Missouri Valley Bridge and Iron Company of Leavenworth, Kansas, to build the substructure for $408,280; with the Strobel Steel Construction Company of Chicago to build the superstructure for $378,005; Cooper-Widenmann Construction Company of Detroit to build the operators' houses for $78,700; and Fowler Electrical Supply Company of Toledo, Ohio, to supply electrical equipment for $34,809. County crews graded and paved the approaches.

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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.

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