The Oak Street railroad bridge, better known as “Whee” Bridge, in Carthage, Missouri, probably has only about a year remaining in its subsantial life before a new bridge is built there.
The Joplin Globe reported:
Carthage’s engineer, Jason Eckhart, with Zanevan Engineering, said Missouri Department of Transportation inspectors who look at the bridge annually have been telling the city for the last few years that it has significant age-related deterioration.
“It’s possible it could be closed before we can start construction,” Eckhart said. “The inspectors have said for a while that the bridge is living on borrowed time. They said after looking at it this year that they may find evidence at their next inspection that it will need to be closed and that may happen before construction of the replacement bridge can begin.”
The Carthage City Council’s Budget Ways and Means Committee heard a report from City Administrator Traci Cox at its last meeting Sept. 9 that replacing the Oak Street bridge will cost $2.2 million.
According to committee minutes, Cox said the city can pay that cost with about $1 million in county road and bridge funds it has saved and $1.2 million from the city’s capital improvement fund.
Eckhart also said modern bridge standards would not allow the distinctive hump with the new bridge.
The Whee Bridge, also known as Tickle Tummy Hill, is so named because of its steep apex, prompting drivers and passengers to exclaim “Whee” when going over it.
It was built about 1920 — several years before U.S. 66 was federally commissioned.
The city has tried to land various grants and other methods to preserve the bridge but has been flummoxed in every direction.
(Image of the Oak Street Bridge, aka Whee Bridge, in Carthage, Missouri, courtesy of Rod Harsh)
FYI- that patch of concrete between Carthage and the Kansas border was the first patch of highway concrete laid in Missouri.
Once that hump is gone it can’t be rebuilt, and the photographs of it go stale the day it closes. One thing worth knowing while it’s still up: street-level imagery is often missing exactly where a structure matters most.
Example: the Chain of Rocks Bridge near St. Louis, the 1929 Route 66 crossing of the Mississippi. It has been walk-and-bike only since 1998, so no camera car can cross it. Four points I probed on its deck return no imagery at all; the nearest coverage I found is the Missouri-side approach, shot in August 2025.
If Carthage or a local group ever wants a dated record of the Oak Street bridge before it changes, that record has to be made on foot, from the deck, on a real day. That’s the work I do (verified field reports of a place as it is now, including what can’t be seen): https://ilands.ai/content/361774315001090048