About Oklahoma Bridges

About Us

The Bridge  Page is maintained by Wes Kinsler. Please contact me if you have any questions or wish to use a picture.

 © 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008 Oklahoma Highways Group. Please do not use photos without a reference back to us or asking first (though, if you link to us from where you are using one of our photos, we usually don't mind). A $125 license fee will be charged per photo to anyone found using our pictures without a credit or link back. Please do not steal our pictures!!!! We go to great lengths traveling the roads of Oklahoma to see these bridges ourselves and photograph them. If you need extra pictures, or photos of specific bridge parts, feel free to write, as many pictures are taken that do not end up on these pages.

History

It all started in November, 2000, when I borrowed a camera from my friend Wendy Robinson and photographed the first two bridges for what would eventually be called Oklahoma Bridges. The first photo, below was not the first bridge featured when the site was initially launched.

The first two bridges photographed were the OK 18 bridge crossing the Arkansas River at Ralston (above) and the now demolished old US 60 bridge across the Arkansas River at Ponca City. This was in November, 2000. A few weeks later, David Erickson became interested in coming and photographing the bridges, and OK bridges was born. On the first bridge hunt we photographed four bridges: Blackbear Creek bridge in Pawnee, the old OK 18 Arkansas River Bridge, re-photographed the Ponca City bridge, and the OK 156 bridge across the Salt Fork Arkansas River bridge. Oklahoma Bridges was launched mid-December 2000 with these four bridges with the Salt Fork Arkansas River bridge being the first one you saw when the page loaded. Eventually, those of us interested in bridge hunting formed the Oklahoma Highways Group.

Oklahoma Highways Group

Jennifer Eastin, member April 2003-present

David Erickson, founding member November 2000-present

Wes Kinsler, founding member November 2000-present

Ken Parker, member Febuary 2004-present

Marita Sánchez, member, May 2001-present

Kyle Wright, member, March 2004-present

The Oklahoma highways group is a collection of persons interested in bridges and seeing Oklahoma  who venture out into Oklahoma's wide open country side on select weekends to photograph older bridges and see other sites that the state has to offer

All the photographs you see here are original photos taken on 35mm Fuji 400 film. After developing, photos are digitized via a flatbed scanner. The original negatives and prints are property of W A Kinsler. Digital images copyright Oklahoma Highways Group. Images may be used with permission.

For many of the bridges you see on this website are many more photographs than what we actually publish online. If you are looking for more photos of a particular bridge, or photographs of construction details, etc, please contact Wes Kinsler via e-mail at: wkinsler@wkinsler.com.

Thank you for visiting Oklahoma Bridges!!!

How I classify the bridges

    I thought I would add this note in case anyone wonders how I made the determination to label a bridge in a given way. First, truss types; a Parker is a Pratt truss, pony, or through, with a polygonal top chord. If a Parker truss has six or more panels, and only five slopes in the upper chord, I call it a Camelback. I object to calling a five-paneled Parker truss a camelback, because it very obviously cannot be configured for anything other than five slopes. Bridges with more than five panels can be made either or, thus making a distinction between the two unique.

    K-trusses and K-Parker trusses. If their be an odd number of panels and the center panel has an X, I call it a K-truss. Without subdividing the middle panel, there is no real good way to arrange it without using an X (strut or no strut). However, if the number of panels be even, then I look at the middle panels to determine the difference. The 8-panel design is a good way to explain this. Most of these have the K-configuration in the middle two panels. A few early examples, however, still use the X in the middle two panels (usually with the strut). The early version with the X in the middle panels would be a K-Parker truss, the latter with the K in the middle panels would be a K-truss.

    Combination spans. I label any mixing of different style trusses a combination bridge. It could be a through span and a pony, or a through span of one type or length, with another through span of different type or length. I also look at the approaches. If the deck of the approaches are concrete, then it is a combination span. If the deck is wood, then I consider it a single span.