Skip to main content

Mottville Camelback Bridge - St. Joseph County, Michigan

Image
By


 

Located in Mottville, Michigan, the Mottville Camelback Bridge spans 270 feet across the St. Joseph River and is a beautiful example of camelback bridges that once commonly dotted the landscape across Michigan and also into neighboring Ontario. Built in 1922 under the direction of bridge engineer, C.A. Melick, the Mottville Bridge is the surviving longest example of a concrete camelback arch bridge in Michigan. A standardized set of plans used by the Michigan Highway Department at the time featured the concrete camelback arch bridges at 90 feet long and 22 feet wide. While the Mottville Bridge was bypassed in 1990 by a modern highway bridge running parallel to it along US 12, it is not the first bridge at this location, even though it has been there the longest in terms of its lifespan.

Several bridges and crossings have graced the general location of the Mottville Camelback Bridge in this slice of St. Joseph County, Michigan. First, there was a Native American trail called the Great Sauk Trail, which connected Detroit, Chicago, and Wisconsin and it crossed the St. Joseph River at a shallow spot in this vicinity. In 1825, the United States federal government had the trail surveyed in response to the westward migration of the pioneers, which converted the trail into the Chicago Road. Several shorter-lived bridges were then built in succession in Mottville over the St. Joseph River. The first Chicago Road bridge to cross the river near Mottville was a substantial timber structure that was constructed in 1833 and 1834 by contractor Hart L. Stewart. Then, a pile-supported bridge replaced it in 1845. In 1867 Mahlon Thompson and Joseph Miller built a Burr arch truss covered bridge located just upstream from the modern-day bridge. Today, you can see the ruins of its stone abutments. The Mottville Camelback Bridge was the fourth bridge at this location, and now there is the highway bridge on US 12.

Today, the bridge has not been altered from its original design and appearance, giving it a high level of historic integrity and significance. There is a small parking area near the bridge and the bridge is open for pedestrian use and passive recreation. It was certainly a nice little stopover to see the Mottville Bridge and take in its role in Michigan highway history.









How to Get There:



Sources and Links:
HistoricBridges.org - Mottville Bridge
Mottville Township - Mottville Bridge
Atlas Obscura - Mottville Camelback Bridge
The Historical Marker Database - Mottville Bridge
Local Remnants - Historic Mottville Bridge Across St. Joseph River
US 12 Heritage Trail - Mottville
Western Michigan University - Final Report of the Archaeological Site Examination of the U.S. 12 Mottville Bridge and Approaches Replacement Project, St. Joseph and Cass Counties, Michigan
Labels:
Location: W Chicago Rd, Constantine, MI 49042, USA

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Trimmer Springs Road (Fresno County)

By
Trimmer Springs Road is an approximately forty-mile rural highway located in Fresno County.  The corridor begins near in California State Route 180 in Centerville and extends to Blackrock Road at the Kings River in the Sierra Nevada range near the Pacific Gas & Electric Company town of Balch Camp. The roadway is named after the former Trimmer Springs Resort and was originally constructed to facilitate access to the Sanger Log Flume.  Trimmer Springs Road was heavily modified and elongated after construction of Pine Flat Dam broke ground in 1947.   Part 1; the history of Trimmer Springs Road Much of the original alignment of Trimmer Springs Road was constructed to facilitate access to the Sanger Log Flume.   The  Kings River Lumber Company  had been established in 1888 in the form of a 30,000-acre purchase of forest lands in Converse Basin.  This purchase lied immediately west of Grant Grove and came to be known as "Millwood."  The co...
Post a Comment
Read more

When was Ventura Avenue east of downtown Fresno renamed to Kings Canyon Road? (California State Route 180)

By
California State Route 180 was one of the original Sign State Routes designated in August 1934.  The highway east of Fresno originally utilized what was Ventura Avenue and Dunlap Road to reach what was then General Grant National Park.  By late year 1939 the highway was extended through the Kings River Canyon to Cedar Grove.   In 1940 General Grant National Park would be expanded and rebranded as Kings Canyon National Park.  The Kings Canyon Road designation first appeared in publications circa 1941 when the California State Route 180 bypass of Dunlap was completed.  Kings Canyon Road ultimately would replace the designation of Dunlap Road from Dunlap to Centerville and Ventura Avenue west to 1st Street in Fresno.   The Kings Canyon Road would remain largely intact until March 2023 when the Fresno Council designated Cesar Chavez Boulevard.  Cesar Chavez Boulevard was designated over a ten-mile corridor over what was Kings Canyon Road, remaini...
Post a Comment
Read more

Interstate 99 at 30

By
When it comes to the entirety of the Interstate Highway System, Interstate 99, when fully completed, is nothing more than 161 miles of a roughly 48,000-mile system (0.3% of total length).  Yet, to more than just a handful of people, the number '99' rubs them the wrong way. Interstate 99 follows the path of two US Highway Routes - US 220 from the Pennsylvania Turnpike in Bedford north to Interstate 80 and then to US 15/Interstate 180 in Williamsport.  It then follows US 15 from Williamsport north to Interstate 86 in Corning, New York. Interstate 99 runs with US 220 through much of Central Pennsylvania. (Doug Kerr) US 220 from Cumberland, Maryland to Interstate 80 and US 15 north of Williamsport were designated part of the Appalachian Highway System in 1965.  Construction to upgrade both corridors progressed steadily but slowly.  In 1991, the two corridors were included as a National High Priority Corridor.  The route from Cumberland to Corning consisted of High P...
Post a Comment
Read more