Sutliff Bridge

Sutliff Bridge
Sutliff Bridge after 2008 flooding
Location Sutliff Road over Cedar River
Nearest city Sutliff, Iowa
Coordinates 41°50′22″N 91°23′32″W / 41.83944°N 91.39222°WCoordinates: 41°50′22″N 91°23′32″W / 41.83944°N 91.39222°W
Built 1897
Architect G.W. Wynn; Jones & Laughlin Company
Architectural style Other
Governing body Local
MPS Highway Bridges of Iowa MPS
NRHP Reference #

98000520

[1]
Added to NRHP May 15, 1998

The Sutliff Bridge is a bridge over the Cedar River at Sutliff, a Johnson County community near Lisbon,[2] Iowa, United States. A Parker truss bridge, it was built in 1897 and 1898 at a cost of approximately $12,000.[3] After a modern replacement was built over the Cedar in 1983, the bridge was slated for destruction, but it was ultimately saved,[4] and on May 15, 1998, it was added to the National Register of Historic Places.[1] Although the bridge remained a celebrated location for locals and for visitors from across Iowa,[4] including a 5k foot race beloved as the “worst road race in America",[5] it succumbed to massive floods in the second week of June 2008: while the river normally flowed many feet below the bottom of the bridge,[3] the floods topped the bridge's deck, and one of the bridge's spans was washed away on June 13[6] as the surrounding countryside was inundated with vast amounts of water.[7] It is estimated that restoring the bridge will cost $1.7 million. Most of this money would come from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), with the rest coming from donations and local governments; both FEMA and the Johnson County Board of Supervisors have agreed in principle to repair the bridge.[8]

Sutliff Bridge before its collapse
Sutliff Bridge truss badly damaged in 2008 flood, downstream from bridge.

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. 2008-04-15.
  2. ↑ Iowa Atlas and Gazetteer (2008) DeLorme Map, Yarmouth, Maine. p. 44
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 HISTORY OF THE SUTLIFF BRIDGE, Sutliff community website, 2008. Accessed 2008-10-31.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Far from ordinary, but not a bridge too far, The Daily Iowan, 2004-07-09. Accessed 2008-10-31.
  5. ↑ Hennigan, George (10 August 2009). "Deciding whether to rebuild historical Sutliff Bridge". Cedar Rapids Gazette. Retrieved 2009-08-10.
  6. ↑ Floodwaters sweep away historic Sutliff Bridge, The Des Moines Register, 2008-06-14. Accessed 2008-10-31.
  7. ↑ Cedar tops historic Sutliff Bridge, Gazette Online, 2008-06-13. Accessed 2008-10-31.
  8. ↑ Supervisors vote to restore Sutliff Bridge, Cedar Rapids Gazette, 7 Apr 2010, http://gazetteonline.com/local-news/flood-recovery/2010/04/07/supervisors-vote-to-restore-sutliff-bridge

External links