North 21st Street Bridge

North 21st Street Bridge
LocationSpans Buckley Gulch and North Fife and Oakes streets, Tacoma, Washington
Coordinates47°16′3″N 122°28′11″W / 47.26750°N 122.46972°W / 47.26750; -122.46972
AreaLess than one acre
Built1910
Built byCreelman, Putnam & Healy
ArchitectWaddell & Harrington
Architectural styleRigid-frame girder bridge
MPSHistoric Bridges/Tunnels in Washington State TR
NRHP reference No.82004280[1]
Added to NRHPJuly 16, 1982

The North 21st Street Bridge in Tacoma, Washington was built in 1910. It was designed by engineers Waddell & Harrington and is a continuous concrete rigid-frame girder bridge. It is significant as one of the very earliest examples of its type. It was built "almost simultaneously" with the 950-foot (290 m) Asylum Avenue Aqueduct in Knoxville, Tennessee, which was documented by Carl W. Condit to be the first continuous concrete girder bridge to be built.[2]: 1–2 

It has three 60 feet (18 m) reinforced concrete spans with four continuous girders. Its spans are supported by reinforced concrete columns and abutments. The bridge has "massive and over-designed" slabs (9 feet (2.7 m) deep) and beams from 4 to 7 feet (1.2 to 2.1 m) wide, from 9 to 11 feet (2.7 to 3.4 m) deep. It is 48 feet (15 m) wide to accommodate trolley tracks in the middle.[2]

The bridge was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982.[1]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. July 9, 2010.
  2. ^ a b Soderberg, Lisa (1979). "HAER/Washington State Bridge Inventory: North 21st Street Bridge". National Park Service. Retrieved June 10, 2016. with two photos