Walnut Creek Bridge – Prescott National Forest AZ

City:
Prescott, AZ

Site Type:
Infrastructure and Utilities, Roads, Bridges, and Tunnels

New Deal Agencies:
Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA), Work Relief Programs

Started:
1936

Completed:
1936

Designer:
Ralph Hoffman

Quality of Information:
Very Good

Marked:
Unknown

Site Survival:
Extant

Description

The Walnut Creek Bridge in northern Yavapai County AZ was built in 1936 with the help of the New Deal.  It crosses Walnut Creek on FS95 and may have been built to improve access to the Prescott National Forest ranger station further up CR125, Walnut Creek Road.

The bridge was built by the Arizona Highways Department using relief workers hired out of transient (homeless) camps along the Verde River, with the aid of Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA) funds (probably via the Arizona Relief Administration).

The design was done by Arizona Highways Bridge Engineer Ralph Hoffman, basically a concrete foundation on which the steel superstructure was laid.  In an unusual twist, the two cantilever sections came from an earlier bridge across the Gila River on the San Carlos Reservation, which was first dismantled by the FERA workers so that it, too, could be replaced by a new bridge.

The Walnut Creek Bridge replaced an older steel truss structure built in 1921 by the Office of Indian Affairs.  More detail is provided by the Historic Bridge Inventory of the Arizona Department of Transportation [ADT], “In 1935 the agency [Office of Indian Affairs] decided to replace the bridge entirely. In January 1936 Arizona Highway Department Bridge Engineer Ralph Hoffman designed new concrete substructures to use three salvaged spans from the San Carlos Bridge at two locations in the Prescott National Forest Yavapai County. Laborers enlisted from the Arizona Transient Camp dismantled the San Carlos Bridge that summer and built the Perkinsville and Walnut Creek Bridges. The two structures have since functioned unaltered at these relatively remote forest crossings.”

 After 1934, the transient residents of the camps were employed throughout Arizona for light construction work. According to ADT, “The re-erection of these three trusses in the Prescott National Forest marked a part of a cooperative program developed in 1934 by the Arizona State Transient Directors and the US Forest Service to provide suitable labor projects for the vast army of ‘unemployed transients’ housed in transient camps across the state. Although other such transient-built public works undoubtedly still remain in Arizona, these are the only known examples of bridges constructed as part of this federal relief program.”

The Walnut Crek bridge’s superstructure is riveted Pratt through-truss, a common type for vehicular bridges in the United States.  It is still standing and in use, as is its twin, the Perkinsville Bridge.

Source notes

Arizona Historic Bridge Inventory, Arizona Department of Transportation, 2008. https://azdot.gov/content/bridge-inventory-introductory-information

Arizona Department of Transportation, Historic Bridge Inventory (long forms) 2019: https://azdot.gov/sites/default/files/2019/07/long_inventory_forms_yavapai.pdf 

David Rookhuysen, "Art of transportation: here and there, "Arizona Department of Transportation blog, June 30, 2020. https://azdot.gov/adot-blog/art-transportation-here-and-there

 

 

Site originally submitted by Brent McKee on December 12, 2017.
Additional contributions by Richard Walker.

Location Info


Forest Service Road 95
Prescott National Forest , AZ 86305
Yavapai County

Coordinates: 34.920347 , -112.847341

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