Drone photo by Andrew Lang Half of the historic, century-old CSAH 8 bridge over the Minnesota River is lifted by a crane Wednesday morning. The bridge, located several miles west of Fort Ridgely State Park, will be transported to Lake Elmo Park Preserve in Washington County for reuse as a pedestrian and bicycle bridge over a small lake.
BROWN COUNTY — The century-old CSAH 8 bridge over the Minnesota River was cut in two and half of it was removed from its anchor bolts this week in preparation for a new $4 million bridge to be built in its place.
Work on the bridge, considered significant as the state’s longest surviving example of a Warren pony truss bridge, will continue in the coming weeks. Construction workers said the other half of the bridge may be removed next week.
A new, 10-ton bridge able to accommodate an 80,000-pound truck, is expected to take about nine months to complete.
The century-old bridge, purchased for $1 by Washington County, will be transported to Lake Elmo Park Preserve for reuse as a pedestrian and bicycle bridge over a small lake.
Bridge replacement and approach work is funded with federal funds, bridge bonds and state aid funds. Brown and Renville counties are sharing some project costs.
The bridge replacement project began several years ago when Franklin Fire Department members reported the bridge needed to be replaced to improve emergency response times.
Franklin firefighter Joel Harmoning said a new bridge could be used to drive modern farm implements on roads other than State Highway 4 over the Minnesota River. Harmoning said TH 4 has “challenging guard rails” for modern implements.
The bridge project has been a long and winding road that has taken more than four years to begin.
Multiple studies were done, including an archaeological survey that determined there were no artifacts near the bridge.
It was determined rehabilitation and restoration were not the best options. Other options included building a new bridge that looked like the old one or rehabilitating it using the original bridge construction design.
A $10,000 environmental study located endangered mussels around the bridge. They were removed for an additional $6,000 to $10,000.
A rendering of the new bridge was not available. Brown County Engineer Wayne Stevens said the new bridge will look similar to bridges over the Cottonwood River on Brown County Highways 13, 11 and 10.
(Fritz Busch can be emailed at fbusch@nujournal.com.)
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