Calaveras County, California Bridges; Main Street Bridge across Angels Creek

May 2013 (38.13778 Degrees, -120.46194 Degrees) Main Street Bridge

Continuing north we arrived in the town of Murphys. Like the Angel Brothers the Murphy Brothers became successful merchants during the gold rush in a town that still bears their name. Today, Murphys is a popular tourist town and it was crowded with people enjoying themselves in outdoor restaurants when we arrived during Memorial Day.

The Main Street Bridge (30C0036) is a reinforced concrete closed spandrel arch over Angels Creek. It is 29 ft long, 32 ft wide, and on a 45 degree skew. The bridge was built in 1909, it carries about 800 vehicles a day, and has a sufficiency rating of 60.

It's a shame that they put a waterline in front of the arch. There wasn't even an attempt to make the waterline inconspicuous. They just drove the supports into the closed spandrels.  Also, they have put so much asphalt on the bridge that you can't even see the bridge deck. On the one hand they wanted to celebrate the historical significance of their town but then they treat their oldest bridge without any respect.

Calaveras County, California Bridges; Main Street Bridge across Angels Creek by Mark Yashinsky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.