San Gabriel River Iron Bridges

There are two iron bridges over the San Gabriel River in Milam County.

This one us on County Road 428 and has recently been refurbished. You could still smell the creosote in the wood.







This is the Sheckels bridge over the San Gabriel on County Road 429. It's sitting in a field adjacent to the new bridge over the river. I'd rather see the bridges end up like this because there is some hope it may be moved to a park or hike/bike trail. The city of Belton recently installed an antique iron bridge on the trail in the park on Nolan Creek.

I went to this bridge a couple of weeks ago for the first time (Apache pass) I smelled the new wood and paint too.

apache pass: [ame="http://youtu.be/qHsgMV55tfg"]apache pass - YouTube[/ame] checked out that bridge one day.

This is what the bridge at Apache Pass looked like before it was rebuilt...

Yeah the first time I went out there the road was closed and the bridge was all grown over with weeds.only way to cross was to drive through the river.

Welcome to the forum Sam.

Love that silver Bandit CB.

Thanks marc

I finally made it to some of the bridges on the upper end of the San Gabriel.





This is on Williamson county road 366 between Chandler road and TX 29.





Burnet county road 272 bridge over the Russel Fork of the north San Gabriel.





County road 210 bridge over the north San Gabriel at Joppa.

I made it down to the other end of the San Gabriel this weekend and visited the last two iron bridges that used to cross the river. Both were damaged in the flood of 1921 and subsequently repaired and served the county until their removal around 1980. Both were moved to Taylor park on Granger lake when the lake was impounded between 1972 and 1980. Both would have been inundated when the lake filled.

The flood of 1921 was a natural disaster of epic proportions for people in south and central Texas. There are interesting websites which chronicle the event which make interesting reading. In a nutshell, a tropical storm dropped 38 inches of rain over 24 hours in Thrall and similar, but lesser amounts in other areas. The flood devastated downtown San Antonio.





This bridge was near Hoxie, about four miles east of where TX 95 crosses the San Gabriel near Circleville.





Though technically not a San Gabriel bridge, this is Friendship bridge which crossed Willis Creek just north of its junction with the San Gabriel. The town of Friendship was inundated when Granger lake was impounded.

Both bridges are on hiking trails and unreachable by motorcycle.



Here's a 1940 highway map of Williamson County which shows the original location of the bridges.

Is the old Sheckels bridge still sitting off to the side?

It was last year when I went by.