Winter Gateway 2022

The Salt River Bridge on State Route 288, the Globe-Young Highway
BY DAVID SOWDERS
Assistant Editor
It may see less traffic
than the Copper Corridor’s
larger bridges, but
in a box canyon near Roosevelt
Lake stands a piece
of Arizona transportation
history.
The scenic, largely unpaved
road from Globe-Miami
to the historic Rim
Country town of Young,
State Route 288, crosses one
A bridge less traveled
David Sowders/Copper Corridor
of Arizona’s oldest bridges
– still in its original location
a century and a year after
it opened. According to the
ADOT bridge inventory, it’s
one of the first bridges built
after statehood.
The Salt River Bridge on
SR288 got its start back in
1918 when the U.S. Bureau
of Public Roads, just created
that July, began work
on a new road in the Tonto
and Crook National Forest.
The road would skirt Roosevelt
Lake, then continue
for 44 miles to Young – and
the bridge would be a major
part of it. BPR surveyors
visited the site, a “box canyon
a short distance above
the old [Roosevelt] diversion
dam,” that summer and
engineered the road later
that year. The agency, part
of the Agriculture Department,
was extensively involved
with road and bridge
construction in Arizona.
The 220-foot bridge with
a 215-foot main span was
designed by BPR engineers
in Denver. It is a long-span
steel Parker truss (named
after Charles Parker, a mechanical
engineer with the
National Bridge and Iron
Works who patented the
design in 1870), supported
by concrete abutments on
spread footings set into the
solid-rock shoreline. According
to ADOT’s bridge
inventory, it’s one of only
four Parker truss bridges to
be found in the state.
Construction drawings
were finished on Sept. 1,
1919, and soon approved by
the Gila County Board of
Supervisors. Work started
in mid-December 1919 and
the span was completed in
1920, opening to traffic that
September.
Today the Salt River
Bridge still serves traffic
to and from Young, and
has stood unchanged for
101 years. It may be lesser
known but it holds a
place in Arizona history
as the earliest and longest
through-truss bridge still
in its original spot, and the
first documented bridge that
BPR (a forerunner of the
federal Highway Department)
built in Arizona.
36 Gateway to the Copper Corridor 2022