The Missouri Department of Transportation last week ordered the City of Carthage to permanently close two bridges on North Garrison Avenue that served as a longtime alternate alignment of Route 66.
Josiah Bayless, Carthage Public Works director, told the Joplin Globe that they were positioning barricades on both sides of the bridges to keep motorists from crossing them after Feb. 27.
Bayless said … that state inspectors looked over the bridges late last week and called him to tell him that structural deterioration has reached a level where it’s unsafe for any vehicle to cross. […]
The city of Carthage has owned the bridges since a deal was struck in 1993 by the City Council and the state. The deal was that the state would refurbish the bridges and bring them to the best condition possible, then turn them over to the city in return for the state building interchanges on the then-new U.S. 71 (Interstate 49) bypass at Civil War Road and Fir Road.
The bridges were restored to a condition that was estimated to last 30 years in the mid-1990s.
That time has passed. Bayless said the city has done what it could to try to extend the lives of the bridges, including seal coating, but replacing the bridges, which has been discussed for almost two decades, was too expensive.
According to Route 66 Deep Tracks, the bridges were part of an Alternate 66 alignment in Carthage from 1931 to 1964. It formerly was U.S. 71.
The route serves as a direct link between Carthage and Kendricktown.
Data from the Bridgehunter website and Deep Traciks indicate the bridges were built in 1928.
(Excerpted image from Google Street View of the North Garrison Overpass, one of the bridges now closed)