Ripley 142, J9S3200, Bridge L0378—Highway 142 over Little Black River
Bridge L0378 is a 1949 Pratt pony truss, and is covered by the Pre-1952 Pony Truss Programmatic Agreement, among MoDOT, the SHPO and FHWA. The consulting parties are the FHWA, SHPO, MoDOT, Missouri Preservation, Historic Bridge Foundation, and Bridgehunter.com. Per Stipulation I-c of the PTPA, MoDOT will notify the remaining consulting parties of the project and effects of the project to the historic bridge concurrently. MoDOT has notified tribes with an interest in Ripley County of the project. These tribes are the Cherokee Nation, the Delaware Nation, the Eastern Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma, the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma, the Osage Nation, the Quapaw Tribe of Oklahoma, and the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians in Oklahoma.
Bridge L0378 is a three-span Pratt pony truss, with a total length of 157’ and three 51’ long pony truss spans. The bridge has an 18’ wide deck curb-to-curb. It has concrete abutments and timber pile bents with steel bent caps. The deck is concrete with an asphalt wearing surface.
The three Pratt trusses in Bridge L0378 were fabricated by the American Bridge Company in 1922 for use in Stoddard County on Route 25 over the Castor River (constructed under project 25-FA-187, as bridge 1028R). The bridge was replaced when Route 25 was realigned in 1948. The field check for the Little Black River crossing in Ripley County was made in January 1949. The recommendation was to reuse the old trusses removed from Route 25 in Stoddard County. The bridge would have 3-50' trusses and an 18' roadway. The gas pipe handrail would be replaced with new channels and the substructure would be timber bents with concrete caps. Bridge L0378 was constructed as part of 2.092 miles of improvements to Missouri 142 that included grading, gravel, culverts and constructing this bridge. Bids for the project were received on June 3, 1949, and the Blackburn & Whiteside Company of Mammoth Springs, Arkansas was the low bidder, with a bid of $43,569.46. The project was awarded on June 10, 1949; the contractors received notice to proceed on July 18, 1949. The project was completed on September 22, 1950. The completed cost of the bridge was $20,058.90.
The bridge was determined eligible for listing on the NRHP under criteria A and C under the areas of engineering and transportation, during consultation for the development of the PTPA because it is a rare surviving example of a multi-span pony truss and as an example of a bridge that was built for the early development of the highway system and repurposed for the supplementary system.
