Colorado Preservation, Inc. is a 501(c)3 nonprofit charitable organization, Federal Tax number 74-2403583
Maitland Arroyo Bridge is a 1940 timber stringer bridge carrying SH 69 over Maitland Arroyo in Huerfano County, Colorado. Listed in the National Register of Historic Places, it is one of the preservation-priority bridges featured in Colorado Preservation, Inc.’s Historic Bridges of Colorado listing.
Missouri Creek Bridge is a historic steel stringer bridge with a timber floor in Huerfano County, Colorado. Built in 1940, the bridge carries SH 69 over Missouri Creek and reflects the influence of Works Progress Administration bridge construction in southern Colorado. It has been determined eligible for the National Register of Historic Places and is one of the preservation-priority bridges in the Historic Bridges of Colorado effort.
The bridge was constructed near the end of the Works Progress Administration era. Created during the Great Depression, the WPA provided employment through public works projects across the country, including roads, bridges, public buildings, parks, and other civic infrastructure. In Colorado, WPA bridge projects often combined practical engineering with Rustic-style design elements, especially in rural and scenic settings where stone, timber, and carefully proportioned structures helped bridges relate visually to their surroundings.
Missouri Creek Bridge is significant for its association with WPA-funded and WPA-built transportation infrastructure. By 1940, the WPA program had passed its peak years in Colorado, but projects like Missouri Creek Bridge continued to leave a lasting imprint on the state’s highway system. These bridges provided much-needed transportation improvements while also putting local labor to work during a period of national economic hardship.
The bridge is also significant as a multi-span steel stringer bridge built with Rustic-style design characteristics. Steel stringer bridges use parallel steel beams, or stringers, to support the deck and carry traffic loads to the abutments and piers. This type of bridge was practical, durable, and adaptable to many smaller and medium-sized crossings. At Missouri Creek, the use of steel I-beam stringers, a timber floor, stone masonry elements, and timber railings gives the bridge both structural efficiency and historic visual character.
The bridge’s character-defining features include its steel I-beam stringer superstructure, stone masonry abutments, stone wingwalls, and battered piers. These stone features are especially important to the bridge’s Rustic character. Rather than presenting the bridge as a purely utilitarian highway structure, the masonry gives it a crafted appearance and helps visually anchor the crossing within the landscape.
The original timber beam railings also contribute to the bridge’s historic identity. Railings are often among the most vulnerable features of historic bridges because they may be altered or replaced to meet changing safety standards. At Missouri Creek Bridge, the retention of original timber railings helps communicate the bridge’s period of construction and its WPA-era design approach.
Missouri Creek Bridge has been determined eligible for the National Register of Historic Places for its association with the Works Progress Administration and for its design as a notable example of a Rustic-style highway bridge. Its significance reflects both the social history of federal work-relief programs and the engineering history of bridge construction in Colorado. The bridge demonstrates how even practical rural crossings could carry architectural and historical meaning.
As part of the Historic Bridges of Colorado preservation effort, Missouri Creek Bridge has been identified as a preservation-priority bridge. CDOT selected the bridge for Group B, recommending development of an individual bridge management plan because it represents a significant trend in bridge building and is a notable example of its type. That recommendation recognizes the bridge’s value as both infrastructure and historic resource.
Preserving Missouri Creek Bridge requires attention to its steel, timber, and masonry components. The bridge’s materials each present different preservation needs, including maintenance of the steel stringers, protection of the timber deck and railings, and repair of stone masonry features. Because the bridge remains part of an active roadway, preservation planning must also consider safety, load capacity, and long-term maintenance.
Missouri Creek Bridge helps tell an important Depression-era story within Colorado’s transportation history. Its design reflects the WPA’s ability to combine labor, materials, engineering, and public purpose in a single project. While the bridge is modest compared with large river crossings or monumental arches, it is significant because it represents the everyday infrastructure that connected rural communities and improved state highways.
The continued preservation of Missouri Creek Bridge ensures that Colorado’s WPA bridge legacy remains visible. It stands as a reminder that historic bridges are not only feats of engineering, but also records of public investment, local labor, and the changing relationship between transportation and landscape during the twentieth century.
This bridge is one of the 23 preservation-priority bridges featured in Colorado Preservation, Inc.’s Historic Bridges of Colorado listing. View the full Historic Bridges of Colorado overview to learn more about the statewide preservation effort.
The Colorado River Bridge is a historic riveted girder bridge in Mesa County that carries US 6 over the Colorado River. Built in 1949, the bridge represents an important mid-twentieth-century phase of Colorado highway engineering and has been identified as one of the preservation-priority bridges in the Historic Bridges of Colorado effort.
This bridge should be understood within the larger transportation history of the Colorado River corridor. In western Colorado, river crossings were essential to highway development, community connection, agricultural access, and regional travel. The Colorado River shaped the alignment of roads and the location of crossings, making bridges critical infrastructure for the movement of people, goods, and services across the Western Slope.
The US 6 Colorado River Bridge is significant as a riveted girder continuous bridge. Riveted girder bridges were widely used during the first half of the twentieth century for highway crossings that required durability, strength, and efficient construction. In these bridges, steel girders carry the roadway deck, while riveted connections join the steel members into a strong structural system. This construction method reflects an important period before welded steel construction became more common in later bridge design.
As a continuous girder bridge, the US 6 Colorado River Bridge also represents a more advanced structural form than a simple-span girder bridge. Continuous girders extend across multiple supports, distributing loads across more than one span. This made the bridge type useful for longer crossings and heavier highway traffic, particularly as automobile and truck travel expanded in the post-World War II period.
The bridge’s construction date places it within a transitional moment in Colorado transportation history. By the late 1940s, the state highway system was adapting to increased traffic volumes, larger vehicles, and new expectations for regional mobility. At the same time, many bridges still relied on established steel fabrication methods, including riveted construction. The US 6 Colorado River Bridge helps document this bridge-building period before later postwar technologies and standardized highway forms became dominant.
The character-defining features of the US 6 Colorado River Bridge include its riveted steel girder superstructure, continuous multi-span form, and its relationship to the Colorado River crossing. These features convey the bridge’s engineering type and its role as a substantial mid-century highway structure. The riveted construction is especially important because this connection method is no longer used in the same way in modern bridge construction.
As part of the Historic Bridges of Colorado preservation effort, the US 6 Colorado River Bridge has been identified by the Colorado Department of Transportation as a preservation-priority bridge. This designation recognizes the importance of preserving representative examples of Colorado bridge types, including bridges that may appear more utilitarian than large arches or steel trusses but are still historically and technologically significant.
Preserving the US 6 Colorado River Bridge helps maintain a visible connection to the era when riveted steel girder bridges carried major highway routes across rivers and other substantial crossings. It also helps tell the story of western Colorado’s transportation development, where bridges across the Colorado River were central to regional connectivity.
The US 6 Colorado River Bridge is part of a broader collection of priority historic bridges that together represent the evolution of Colorado bridge design from the 1920s through the 1970s. Its preservation helps ensure that mid-century steel girder construction remains part of that story and that Colorado’s historic bridge inventory reflects both dramatic landmark structures and the everyday highway bridges that made statewide travel possible.
This bridge is one of the 23 preservation-priority bridges featured in Colorado Preservation, Inc.’s Historic Bridges of Colorado listing. View the full Historic Bridges of Colorado overview to learn more about the statewide preservation effort.
The Colorado River Bridge near De Beque in Mesa County is a 1945 steel rigid-connected Parker through truss carrying US 6 over the Colorado River. Listed in the National Register of Historic Places, it is a preservation-priority historic bridge and an important Western Slope river crossing.