The Collapse of the Cook Road Phantom Bridge, Guilford, Indiana

About 3 miles north of Guilford, Indiana on the west side of State Route 1 is the former Cook Road Bridge. Built in 1901 this bridge use to span Slab Camp Creek. Built by the American Bridge Company of New York this light plate girder bridge was 41 feet long and about 13 feet wide with a timber floor. Three rectangular plates about 4 feet high made up each girder and were reinforced at the joints with narrow stiffeners.

Cook Road originally headed northwest where using this bridge it crossed Slab Camp Creek, then made a hard left hand turn where it headed southeast before making a righthand turn heading southwest where it originally met up with Zinser Road which came down out of North Dearborn Road. I drove over this bridge several times in the early 1990s and it seemed pretty stable at that time. The bridge was bypassed in the mid 1990s going straight back instead of making the funky curve. These pictures of the bridge were taken in January 2010 when it was still standing. In this picture you can see the west stone bridge abutment starting to crumble. Unfortunately in the Spring of 2011 the west end stone abutment was washed out and sent the bridge into the creek below where it still sits to this today.

GPS Location: 39°12’14.6″N 84°55’37.7″W