Whispering Pines Bridge, Spanning East Verde River at Forest Service Control Road, Payson

Source document Quoted word for word from HAER ARIZ,4-PAYS.V,1-. Not written, edited or summarised by this site.

Spanning the East Verde River on Forest Service Control Road; miles north of Payson; Southwest k of Section 34, Township 12 North, Range 10 East Gila County, Arizona; UTM: USGS Quadrangle: Kehl Ridge, Arizona {lh Minute Series) Construction Date: Erected in as part of seven-span bridge; Re-erected as single-span bridge in Designer: U.S. Office of Indian Affairs, Washington, DC; Midland Bridge Company, Kansas City, MO Fabricator/Builder: Midland Bridge Company, Kansas City, MO

Source document Quoted word for word from HAER ARIZ,4-PAYS.V,1-. Not written, edited or summarised by this site.

The Whispering Pines Bridge is noteworthy as one of the last remaining spans from the San Carlos Bridge, a large- scale wagon truss built over the Gila River by the Office of Indian Affairs. Completed in the San Carlos Bridge is technologically significant as the earliest documented example in Arizona of a mainstay structural type: the riv- eted Pratt through truss. It is historically important as one of the earliest multiple-span wagon bridges erected in Ari- zona by the federal government. The San Carlos Bridge is also infamous for its failure. Washed out a year after its completion, it stood abandoned for some six years before it was repaired and re-opened.

After that, the structure then carried traffic for only 14 years before it was replaced entirely and the individual spans distributed around the state. Assembled by: Clayton B. Fraser Froserdesign Loveland, Colorado February M Whispering Pines Bridge m HAER No. AZ-48 K page 2 The Historic American Engineering Record [HAER] documentation for the Whispering Pines Bridge was conducted by Fiaserdesign of Lovetand, Colo- rado, under contract with the U.S. Forest Service. Tonto National Forest. The Forest Service has proposed the replacement of the structure in This recordation is intended to mitigate, in part, the impact on the bridge by the action.

Field recording of the Whispering Pine Bridge was undertaken In Feb- ruary The research for this project has Involved five archival sources: the Arizona Department of Transportation, the Arizona State Library and the Tonto National Forest Office, all located In Phoenix, Arizona; the Gila County Public Library in Payson, Arizona; and the Kansas City Public Library, located In Kansas City. Missouri.1 F rom when much of Arizona territory was acquired from Mexico by the Treaty of Guadalupe, until with the enactment of the Federal Organic Act that designated the Territory after its separation from New Mexico, Arizona was crossed by only two major overland routes. Both traversed the region from east to west. The northern route followed Army Lieutenant Edward Beale's survey along the parallel.

Known as Beale's Road, it was used almost en- tirely by hunters and trappers and the military traveling to California. The southern route was constructed by the famed Mormon Brigade during the war with Mexico in Extending from Santa Fe to San Diego, this hurried- ly built road entered Arizona territory in the southeast corner, extended north to the Gila River and then west to the Yuma Crossing of the Colorado River. Called the Gila Trail because it largely paralleled the Gila River, the road was later made popular by those rushing to California in search of gold. Other se- condary routes-no more than trails, really-developed through the region by intermittent use by military convoys and freighters.

Road maintenance, such as it was, was generally performed on these routes by travelers as the need occurred. Bridges were virtually nonexistent. After its formation in the Arizona Territorial Assembly recognized the need for transportation routes to connect the widely scattered settlements. Money for road construction was scarce, however. The First Territorial Assem- bly did what government bodies have traditionally done when short of funds themselves: it licensed others to build the roads and bridges for profit. Private- ly held toll companies were granted exclusive rights to build and administer toll roads and collect fees based upon predetermined price rates.

The law did little to encourage excellence in road construction, and toll road operators avoided bridge building as an unnecessary expense. The bridges that were built rarely lasted beyond the statutory limits of the franchises. Poorly con- m Whispering Pines Bridge m HAER No. AZ-48 8 page 3 structed and unevenly maintained, these rudimentary timber or masonry spans typically washed out in floods or collapsed under load. The toll roads were generally regarded as a necessary evil, a costly but tem- porary way to develop a much-needed road system. But the First Territorial As- sembly was also aware of the need for free highways to promote transportation and settlement.

The lawmakers tried to strike a balance between roads built by private capital and supported by tolls and those over which no tolls could be extracted. To prevent toll operators from monopolizing travel by incorporating every road, the Assembly designated several existing roads-developed solely by prior use-as free routes. This formed the basis for a free-highway network in Arizona, upon which subsequent legislatures would expand by incorporating toll road companies and simultaneously declaring other roads as toll-free.2 Arizona's territory-level management soon proved burdensome, however. To remedy this, the Assembly began transferring responsibility for building roads to the individual counties in by authorizing the counties to establish road districts to build roads and bridges.

In the Assembly conveyed even more autonomy to the counties by giving them the right to incorporate toll road proprie- tors themselves. With this, the county administrators possessed the legislative tools needed to pursue active road and bridge programs. They rarely used them well. Seldom following a premeditated plan, county supervisors authorized the surveying and clearing of roads and construction of bridges as needed, usually in response to urgent local petitions. In the sparsely populated areas outside of the major towns, relatively few vehicular bridges were erected before the turn of the century. None is known to remain. Many of the earliest county-built bridges, like those on the toll roads, tended to be more flimsy than substantial.

Often made up of timber stringer spans on tim- ber piles or crude concrete abutments and piers, these structures failed with dis- tressing regularity. Only a handful proved more permanent. Over many washes and creeks, the counties erected kingpost or queenpost pony trusses, with timber compression members and wrought iron tension rods. At longer crossings, the counties erected pin-connected trusses. In Pinal County built one of the earliest all-metal wagon trusses in Arizo- na.

Spanning the Gila River at Florence, the structure consisted of two 180-foot Pratt spans, with an extensive timber trestle over an island and slough.3 Nava- jo County later built a Pratt through truss to carry the Winslow-Holbrook High- way over Chevelon Creek and other trusses over Clear Creek and the Little Colo- rado River.4 Similarly, Graham County built a four-span Pratt truss over the Gila River at Duncan to replace an earlier wooden structure.5 Virtually all of the early metal trusses built by the counties featured relatively modest dimensions, standard Pratt or Parker configurations and pre-fabricated, pin-connected detailing. m Whispering Pines Bridge M HAER No.

A2-48 a page 4 A fter the turn of the century, it had become apparent that many major road projects were beyond the capacity of the individual counties. Furthermore, the counties were building roads on an individual basis, without regard to the roads in adja- cent counties. This tended to create an uneven patchwork of dissimilar routes, making travel difficult for all but a few destinations. To take a more active role in the development of intrastate highways, the Territorial Assembly in creat- ed the office of the Territorial Engineer. Girand, Arizona's first (and only) Territorial Engineer, soon thereafter began construction of several territorial high- ways.

The strategy was to link the county seats and more populous towns through a network of graded, but un- paved roads, which varied in width from 16 feet to 24 feet, according to traffic and terrain.9 By the time Arizona was ad- mitted to the Union in the territorial government had constructed some 243 miles of highway at an average cost of. per mile.

Additional- ly, lineal feet of bridges over 100 feet in length had been built, totalling in value.7 Girand estimated that an additional 740 miles of trails and county roads would soon be upgraded to form highways, "completing the great east and west and north and south roads."8 The north-south highway ex- tended from Douglas, in the state's southeast corner, north through Tucson, Phoenix and Flagstaff, terminating at the south rim of the Grand Canyon [See Figure 1]. The east-west road paralleled the Gila Rivet east from Yuma, as had the Gila Trail, following the river's north H Figure 1. Map of Arizona, by Arizona State Engineer's Office, side and branching north to , s Whispering Pines Bridge HAER No. AZ-48 H page 5 Phoenix and Mesa.

East from Mesa the road followed the Apache Trail to Roose- velt Dam and wound through the mountains to Globe, looping southward past San Carlos, Solomonvilie and Clifton to Duncan, at the state's eastern border. "The routes selected had become fixed to a certain extent by the construction of several units of their length," stated Lamar Cobb, Arizona's first State Engin- eer, "and, though not meeting with entire approval, they had also become fixed in the public mind as the State Highways.

It was, therefore thought best not to make any changes in their location as it would undoubtedly lead to others by succeeding administrations, resulting in State Highways 'that would start nowhere and end nowhere,' thus defeating one object of the State Road appropriation-a State system of roads comprised of coordinating county units connecting every county seat in the State."9 In connection with this highway construction, Girand supervised construction of a handful of bridges over key river crossings on the territorial network. The first major territorial structure replaced the trusses over the Gila River at Flor- ence. In November Girand designed a multiple-span girder structure for the new Florence Bridge, which was completed a year later by convict laborers.

Girand designed and built other bridges over the Salt River at Tempe, the Verde River at Camp Verde, and the Black River near Fort Apache. "These first bridg- es," he commented, "are links in the chain that joins Arizona's cities and towns."10 T he territory and counties accounted for what few bridges were being built in Arizona at the time, but a third entity-or group of entities, actually-was soon involved with bridge construction as well. The federal government, through its various agencies, built several vehicular spans as part of government highway programs. Coming from a variety of bureaucratic sources and circumstances, these bridges displayed a wide range of technological expression, some of which were as eso- teric as they were dramatic.

The bridges themselves were remarkable enough. What was perhaps more remarkable was the fact that they were built at all. Virtually every major bridge built by the federal government in Arizona required individual Congressional approval. The federal agency most active in territorial and early state road and bridge construction was the Office of Indian Affairs [OIA, predecessor to today's Bureau of Indian Affairs] in the Department of the Interior. With thousands of square miles of land on 19 separate reservations, the OIA was responsible for the infra- structure of a large part of Arizona. OIA's first major structure spanned the Little Colorado River at the western edge of the Navajo Indian Reservation. m Whispering Pines Bridge m HAER No.

AZ-48 m page 6 Located about 50 miles north of Flagstaff, the long-span wagon bridge would link the sprawling Navajo and Hopi reservations with Flagstaff. OIA contracted with the Midland Bridge Company of Kansas City, Missouri, in to design and build the structure. Completed the next year, the Cameron Bridge featured a 660-foot suspension span with steel wire cables and a pin-connected stiffening truss.11 The Cameron Bridge had a profound impact on the commerce and transporta- tion of a rugged, remote and isolated section of Arizona. It soon spawned a trad- ing post and small settlement on its south side and facilitated travel to and from the Navajo Reservation.

Perhaps more important commercially, it carried virtual- ly all Anglo freight traffic between Flagstaff and Arizona's northern border. Inducing the federal government to pay for the territory's internal improvements in the name of Indian advancement had been the idea of Ralph H. Cameron, Arizona's Territorial Delegate to Congress.12 As his namesake bridge over the Little Colorado was under construction in April Cameron introduced leg- islation in Congress to build two other wagon bridges on the San Carlos Indian Reservation.13 His bill allotted to pay for steel or concrete structures over the San Carlos and Gila rivers near the town of San Carlos, in southeastern Arizona.

Ostensibly, the spans would benefit the Apache Indians by providing all-weather access from the reservation to the Solomonville-San Carlos Highway, the principal route through the region. But they would also form a strategic cros- sing of the Gila River for Anglo travelers along the territorial east-west route. The San Carlos Bridge, as planned, would combine with the Tempe Bridge under construction over the Salt River and the proposed Antelope Hill Bridge over the Gila in western Arizona to span the route's three most problematic crossings. Moreover, it would form the only point between Florence and Duncan at which Anglo freight wagons could traverse the Gila River on their way to the booming mining district around Globe.

Cameron's bill failed, and he re-introduced it on January 29, without the appropriation. This too failed. When Arizona was admitted into the United States two weeks later, Cameron was replaced in Congress by Charles Hayden. Hayden almost immediately resumed his predecessor's quest for bridges. On March 30, he introduced a bill again directing the Secretary of the Interior to examine suitable sites for the San Carlos bridges, as well as a steel span over the Colorado River at the Yuma Indian Reservation.14 This time, without the commitment to fund actual construction, the legislation passed. The proposed San Carlos and Yuma bridges were surveyed late in the next year Congress approved funds for their construction. 88 Whispering Pines Bridge M HAER No.

AZ-48 IB page 7 R esponsibility for locating and designing the Gila River Bridge had been delegated to the Indian Office in Washington, Rather than place the structure at San Carlos, as had been envisioned in the initial legislation, the agency proposed a location more than twenty miles upriver, at the Naches Siding of the Arizona & Eastern Railroad, near Calva. OIA engineers sited the bridge over a meander- ing stretch of river bounded on both sides by earthen banks [see Figure 2\.

The Solomonville-San Carlos Highway paralleled the river on its south side, as did the tracks of the Arizona & Eastern Railroad.15 As delineated by OIA in July the bridge was comprised of seven Pratt through truss spans, each extend- ing 138 feet in eight equal-length panels, for an overall structure length of 980 feet [see Figure 3]. The trusses were supported about twelve feet above the river by concrete mass abutments and concrete-filled steel cylinder piers [see Figures 4, 5 and 6). The trusses had an overall width of a nominal roadway width of 16 feet, and an overhead clearance of almost 15 feet beneath the portal struts. Their timber deck and steel stringers were designed to carry a live load of 100 pounds per square foot. PLAN AT

Gila River Bridge

Figure 2. Site plan of the San Carlos Bridge, adapted from drawing by Frank H. Olmsted, January m Whispering Pines Bridge M HAER No. AZ-48 91 page 8 oi*y *r r>op l i * X V. cny /rJ^a/y Figure 3. Overall profile of bridge, from Department of the Interior, Office of Indian Affairs, General Design of Bridge, July Whispering Pines Bridge HAERNo. AZ-48 page 9 To fabricate and erect the San Carlos Bridge, OIA contracted with the Midland Bridge Company, the contractor for the Cameron Bridge.16 It is unclear whether OIA engineered the trusses for the San Carlos Bridge or whether Midland was responsible for their design.

Based on the generalized drawings produced by OIA, the agency probably delineated the overall layout and configuration of the bridge and left the specific truss design and detailing to the bridge company. As built, the superstructure consisted of seven rigid-connected Pratt trusses. A mainstay for wagon and railroad trusses, the Pratt truss was patented in by Thomas and Caleb Pratt. The truss was characterized by upper chords and vertical mem- bers acting in compression and lower chords and diagonals that acted in tension. The Pratt's parallel chords and equal panel lengths resulted in standardized sizes for the verticals, diagonals and chord members, making fabrication and assembly rela- tively easy.

In the highly com- petitive bridge market, in which Y efficiency equated withprof it, Pratt trusses received almost universal use. "The Pratt truss A'r ^7' is the type most commonly used in America for spans under two hundred and fifty feet in length," noted bridge engineer J.A.L. Waddell wrote in "Its advantages are simplicity, econ- DTD omy of metal, and suitability for connecting to the floor and lateral systems."17 The trusses of the San Carlos Bridge employed field-riveted -e - connections-a technology that was then superseding earlier <- *tow/v<? pinned connections for Ameri- can bridge construction, The inclined end posts and upper chords consisted of two back- Figure 4.

Detail of south abutment, by Office of Indian Affairs, July to-back steel channels, mi Whispering Pines Bridge HAERNo. A2-48 page 10 covered by a continuous quarter-inch plate on top and joined by 2\-inch lacing straps underneath. The verticals were similarly configured, with two channels laced together by 1 % -inch steel straps. The lower chords were made up of paired 5x3isx^ angles with 1 %-inch steel strap lacing; the diagonals employed either two laced angles or four laced angles. The struts were comprised of two pairs of angles, laced together. The portal struts were comprised of steel angle lattices with curved knee braces. Both upper and low- er lateral braces were angles. Eighteen- inch-deep I-beam floor beams were field- bolted to gusset plates at the lower chord panel points.

These supported eight lines of 8-inch I-beam or channel stringers, upon which the timber deck was attached. The truss was supported on all four corners by cast bearing shoes, which were anchor- bolted to the piers and abutments.18 Midland riveted the members of the San Carlos Bridge in its Kansas City shops, using steel pieces rolled in the Pittsburgh . mills of the Cambria Iron Works. During M Figure 5. Detail of typical pier, by Office of Indian Affairs, July the fall of the firm shipped several carloads of steel to the site by rail and stored the steel components beside the construction site. Steelworkers then used a wooden traveler to erect the trusses over traditional timber falseworks.

The San Carlos Bridge was reported complete by the end of the year.19 B uilding the San Carlos Bridge proved far easier than keeping it open to traffic, however. As OIA soon discovered, the Gila River-once called the muddiest river in the world-had few rivals in the West for its sheer destructiveness. Variously known as the Rio del Nombre de Jesus (river in the name of Jesus), Rio de los Santos Apostoles (river of the sainted Apostles), Rio de las Balsas (river of the rafts), Rio Whispering Pines Bridge HAER No.

AZ-48 page 11 del Coral (red river), Brazo de Mirafloras and Gila River (from the Spanish "a steady going to or from a place"), this storied watercourse had its headwaters in the mountains of western New Mexico.20 The Gila entered Arizona from the east at Duncan and disgorged itself from its mountainous canyon before meandering through Greenlee and Graham counties.21 It flowed be- neath the San Carlos and Florence bridges and snaked its way west- ward through Pinal, Maricopa and Yuma counties, where it emptied into the Colorado River immediate- ly upriver from the town of Yuma. The Gila River was notorious for its radicalshiftsincharacter. It could range from barely perceptible trickle to violent flood and back within a day's time.

The river's relatively shallow descent, wide flood plain and sandy bed permitted fording during low-water stage throughout much of Arizona. But during floods, all traffic across the Gila virtually #r " .' stopped. The river flooded to some extent . almost every year. Monumental Figure 6. Detail of north abutment, by Office of Indian Affairs, July floods, cresting far higher than usual, were logged in and "The oldest inhabitant [of Solomonville] is silenced," the Arizona Republican stated in the wake of flooding in March "He fails to name a time when the Gila river was so high as it has been this week." The newspaper reported: At an early hour on Tuesday morning, about 3 o'clock, people living In the eastern portion of Solomonville were driven from their homes by water coming Into them.

The Montezuma canal, which was in their rear, had overflowed and that part of the town was soon submerged. The river was on a level with the alfalfa fields which lay immediately under the Montezuma canal and was at least one and a half miles wide, and its roar was almost deafening... The dams have all been swept away, fences gone: many houses also, and dtrches filled with mud. Many fields are badly washed or cov- ered with sand and mud, which will prevent seed already planted from growing.22 38 Whispering Pines Bridge m HAER No. AZ-48 apage 12 Parts of the wagon bridge at Florence-both the county and the state ver- sions-were carried away with almost every Hood.

This prompted Arizona Senator Marcus Smith in to call the hapless structure "a monument to the treachery of the river."23 During the downpour just before Christmas the river actual- ly washed away approaches on both sides of the concrete structure, isolating it in the middle of the roaring channel.24 The Christmas flood of marked the first major test of the San Carlos Bridge since its completion. The steel structure itself withstood the high waters, but the river shifted its channel dramatically immediately upstream, cutting a 500-foot- wide swath through the south embankment [see Figure 71.

"The bridge proper was uninjured but left isolated by lack of facilities to confine the stream," State Bridge Engineer Merrill Butler later reported, "permitting the Gila to change its course and wash around the approach."25 With the south approach destroyed, the bridge was rendered worthless, only a year after its completion. O wned and maintained by the state, the Florence Bridge was soon repaired (and re- paired again the following year when another flood destroyed about feet of embankment at the south end). The San Carlos Bridge, on the other hand, was federal property. Money had been appropriated for the bridge's construction but not its maintenance and not for rectification works on the Gila.

A little more than a year after the flood, Frank Olmsted, a Los Angles-based engineer under con- tract with the Department of the Interior, investigated the site and recommended that the riverbank be rebuilt to restore the bridge's south approach.26 But without funds, the Indian Office could do nothing to repair the structure. It thus stood abandoned, as the river cut progressively deeper into the south embankment at each flood.

"The usefulness of this particular bridge has been lost to the com- munity for a period of something over five years because of erratic stream action," Butler wrote in "Necessity for stream control is, therefore, emphasized in conjunction with bridge construction and maintenance."27 Instead of re-channeling the river under the bridge, the Indian Office eventually opted to extend the bridge over the new channel. OIA reportedly added four 126-foot trusses to the structure's south end to reach the new embankment.28 The San Carlos Bridge was thus put back into service in February In the mid- it was made part of U.S. Highway 180 (later U.S. 70) and placed under the aegis of the state highway department. As traffic along the highway in- creased, the narrow trusses eventually formed a bottleneck.

By the mid-1930s the highway department was planning a new, wider structure to replace the San Carlos Bridge. m Whispering Pines Bridge 81 HAER No. AZ-48 a page 13 PLAN OF GROUND SHOWING PROPOSED WORKS AT THE SEVEN SPAN GILA RIVER BRIDGE TWELVE MILES ABOVE SAN CARLOS AGENCY ARIZONA DO 0 IW1M!H><BIMW>IHHIMIW I I li SCALE OF FEET TO Hon. SECRETARY OF INTERIOR BT FRANK HOLMSTED-CONSULTING ENGINEER Los ANGELES CAL.-SEPTEMBERK)i6 Figure 7. Overall plan showing damage to San Carlos Bridge, by Frank H. Olmsted, September m Whispering Pines Bridge m HAER No. AZ-48 a page 14 In a new bridge was built at Bylas, immediately upriver from the existing structure.

The next year three of the spans from the original San Carlos Bridge were moved and re-erected at two locations on the Prescott National Forest in Yavapai County. To build the new bridges and provide employment during the Depression, laborers were enlisted from the "vast army of unemployed transients" housed in Transient Camps across the state.29 A fourth span was eventually moved onto the Tonto National Forest north of Pay- son. After receiving a right-of-way easement for a bridge across the East Verde River at the Whispering Pines development in July the Forest Service built new concrete abutments and moved one of the 138-foot trusses to the Whis- pering Pines site.30 The Whispering Pines Bridge has since functioned in place at this remote forest crossing.

Its original steel lattice guardrails have been re- placed with Armco beams, and the original timber deck has been replaced with asphalt over steel bridge plate, but the truss superstructure itself remains in unal- tered and relatively well-preserved condition. The Whispering Pines Bridge is presently scheduled for replacement in C hronically short of funds, the county, territory and state governments of Arizona have historically enlisted the help of the federal government to extend the impact of their road and bridge programs. Beginning with the first military trails and con- tinuing to the present-in which sumptuous grants are made to the state annu- ally by the Federal Highway Administration-the government has played a major role in building Arizona's infrastructure.

The Indian Office was one of the earliest of the federal agencies active in the territory in the early Under the direc- tion of Arizona's Congressional delegation, OIA funded, in whole or in part, such large-scale structures as the Cameron Bridge, the Yuma Bridge, the Topock Bridge, the Navajo Bridge and the San Carlos Bridge. These strategically placed spans were nominally built to promote the socioeconomic development of nearby reservations. But they have proved more significant as conduits for regional and interstate traffic. The various federal and local agencies responsible for this traffic have undertaken bridge construction with decidedly mixed results.

Early engineers avoided build- ing bridges when they could, and when they could not, they often eschewed per- manency for low construction costs. As a result, structures that functioned per- fectly well over languid desert streams were ripped apart when the streams turned to flood.31 The Florence and the Antelope Hill bridges over the Gila River, the Coldwater Bridge over the Agua Fria River, the Tempe Bridge over the Salt River and numerous lesser spans all required perennial maintenance to keep them Whispering Pines Bridge HAER No. AZ-48 page 15 serviceable. Even among these notorious structures, the San Carlos Bridge was a particularly egregious example of bridge failure. Completed in it was closed in the wake of its first major flood a year later.

With no funds to repair it, the bridge was allowed to languish unused for some six years before it was re-opened. The addition of four more trusses in was not so much a restora- tion of the bridge as an acknowledgement that the Gila River was beyond the engineers' control. The history of bridge construction in Arizona is studded with noteworthy techno- logical successes. It is also marred by disastrous failures. The San Carlos Bridge- and its descendant, the Whispering Pines Bridge-illustrates elements of both. Endnotes 'This HAER documentation draws upon the Arizona statewide inventory of highway bridges for background information. For more on bridge construc- tion in Arizona, see Clayton B.

Fraser, "Arizona Bridge Inventory," prepared for the Arizona Department of Transportation, October 2 Arizona State Highway Department, "History of the Arizona State High- way Department," unpublished manuscript, located at the Arizona State Library, Phoenix, Arizona, pp. 3 Arizona [Florence] Blade-Tribune, 24 July 1 August 4 Arizona Good Roads Association, Road Maps and Tour Book (Prescott, Arizona: Arizona Good Roads Association, reprint edition, Phoenix: Arizo- na Highways, Proceedings of the Graham County Board of Supervisors, Book 6, p. 216 (16 August located at the Graham County Courthouse, Safford, Arizona. 6 "History of the Arizona State Highway Department," p. 4. 7 Report of the State Engineer of the State of Arizona: July 1, toJune 30, (Phoenix: Arizona State Press, p. 5.

8 "History of the Arizona Highway Department," p. 5. Whispering Pines Bridge HAER No. AZ-48 page 16 9 Report of the State Engineer of the State of Arizona, p. 5. 10 Ibid. "For more on the Cameron Bridge, see Don Abbe, Roger Brevoort and Doug Kupel, "Cameron Suspension Bridge: National Register of Historic Places Registration Form," June on file at the Arizona State Historic Preservation Office, Phoenix, Arizona. 12 Directing funds that had been appropriated for Indian support to serve Anglo needs was hardly novel. The Office of Indian Affairs had been prey to pork barrel politics almost since its inception in Despite occasional efforts by reformers to clean it up, the Indian Office remained the archetype of government corruption and inefficiency throughout the and early centuries.

Al- though bridge construction did indeed benefit Indians, it undoubtedly profited the commerce and transportation of Anglos far more. Howard R. Lamar, ed., The Reader's Encyclopedia of the American West (New York: Harper and Row, p. Several exhaustive studies of the Indian Office have been produced, including Robert M.

Utley, The Indian Frontier of the American West: (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, Francis Paul Pruscha, The Great Father: The United States Government and the American Indians (Lin- coln, Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press, and Paul Stuart, Thelndian Office: Growth and Development of an American Institution, (Ann Arbor, Michigan: UMI Press, 13 Congress, 1st Session, The text of Cameron's bill reads as follows: A BILL to authorize the Secretary of the Interior to construct bridges across the San Carlos nd Gila Rivers on the White Mountain or San Carlos Indian Reserva- tion, in the Territory of Arizona, and for other purposes.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the Secretary of the Interior be, and is hereby, authorized and directed to construct suitable steel and concrete wagon bridges, with approaches thereto, across the Gila and San Carlos Rivers on the White Mountain or San Carlos Indian Reservation, in the Territory of Arizona, for the use and accommodation of the Indians and the general traveling public on the said Indian reservation. That the Secretary of the Interior is hereby authorized to select the most practi- cal available sites for said bridges at points on said rivers, not to exceed three miles above the confluence of said rivers. Whispering Pines Bridge HAER No.

AZ-48 page 17 That the Secretary of the Interior is hereby authorized to make all necessary regu- lations to carry out this Act, and for the purpose of carrying its provisions into effect there is hereby appropriated, out of any money in the United States Treas- ury not otherwise appropriated, the sum of one hundred thousand dollars. 14 Congress, 2nd Session, The text of Hayden's bill reads as follows: A BILL to authorize the Secretary of the Interior to investigate the necessity for constructing bridges on the White Mountain, or San Carlos, Indian Reservation, in the State of Arizona, and on the Yuma Indian Reservation, in the State of Cali- fornia, and for other purposes.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the Secretary of the Interior be, and he is hereby, authorized and directed to make an investigation of the conditions on the White Mountain, or San Carlos, Indian Reservation, in the State of Arizona, with respect to the necessity of constructing suitable steel and concrete wagon bridges, with approaches thereto, across the San Carlos Creek and the Gila River, in the vicinity of San Carlos, on said reservation, and also to cause surveys, plans, and reports to be made, together with an estimated limit of the cost for the construction of said bridges, at such sites as he may select, and submit his report thereon to Congress on the first Monday in December, nineteen hundred and twelve; and the sum of two thousand dollars, or so much thereof as may be necessary, is hereby appropriated, out of any money in the Treasury not otherwise appropriated, fee the purposes herein authorized.

That the Secretary of the Interior be, and he is hereby, authorized and directed to make an investigation of the conditions on the Yuma Indian Reservation, in the State of California, with respect to the necessity of constructing a suitable thoroughfare bridge of sufficient strength and capacity to safely carry street cars, in addition to foot and wagon traffic, over and across the Colorado River, connec- ting Fort Yuma, on the Yuma Indian Reservation, Imperial County, State of Cali- fornia, with the town of Yuma, State of Arizona, and also to cause surveys, plans, and reports to be made, together with an estimated limit of the cost for the construction of said bridge, at such site as he may select, and submit his report thereon to Congress on the first Monday in December, nineteen hundred and twelve; and the sum of one thousand dollars, or so much thereof as may be necessary, is hereby appropriated, out of any money in the Treasury not otherwise appropriated, for the purpose herein authorized.

m Whispering Pines Bridge M HAER No. AZ-48 m page 18 ls The highway between San Carlos and Solomonville underwent substantial improvements between and perhaps in anticipation of the San Carlos Bridge. In Graham County transferred to the Indian agent at the San Carlos Reservation to grade the route between San Carlos and Geronimo, along which the bridge was located. An additional 16-mile stretch east of Geronimo was undertaken in The construction involved exten- sive roadwork and construction of nine wooden bridges with an aggregate length of 258 feet. Report of the State Engineer..., 16 A frequent contractor for the OIA, the Midland Bridge Company was, for most of its existence, structured as a partnership of two Kansas City civil en- gineers-Henry Freygang and A. A. Trocon.

According to Kansas City directories, the firm was first formed around and continued operations until sometime between and In July Midland reorganized as a corporation based in Augusta, Maine. Corporate officers were then listed as: E.M. Leavltt. President Albert Trocon. Vice President Ray Cargltl, Secretary LE. Haskell, Treasurer Earnest McLean, Clerk The absence of Freygang's name suggests that he had by that time left the com- pany, either through retirement or death. Midland built several steel structures in Arizona (e.g., the Cameron Bridge, the San Carlos Bridge, the Allentown Bridge and the Hereford Bridge), as well as in Nebraska, Iowa, Wyoming, Colo- rado and Utah. 17 J.A.L.

Waddell, Bridge Engineering (London: John Wiley and Sons, page 18 The description is based upon an inspection of the Whispering Pines Bridge by Clayton Fraser, 8 February 19 Arizona State Highway Department, Fourth Biennial Report of the State Engineer to the Governor of Arizona: (Phoenix: Republican Print Shop, p. 65. 20 Howell Granger, X Marks the Place: Historical Names and Places in Arizona (Tucson, Arizona: Falconer Publishing Company, pp. Ross Calvin, River of the Sun: Stories of the Storied Gila (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, p. M Whispering Pines Bridge M HAER No. AZ-48 page 19 21 "The Gila River... rises in the cool and forested areas stretching along the western slope of the American continental divide in New Mexico and Arizona.

From the elevated mountain sides and plateaus where the stream has its origin it flows some 250 miles in its meandering to reach the lower line of Graham County, dropping feet in this distance of an average fall of feet per mile of river channel. The stream has a drainage area above San Carlos of square miles. The stream has only a few valley openings of agricultural land above San Carlos. These are Safford Valley, acres; Duncan Valley, acres; San Francisco, Blue and Eagle Creeks, 820 acres; and a possible acres more in New Mexico, making about acres in all...

The water- shed is now distinguished by the frequency and intensity of its flash floods, which sweep down from the upper mountains loaded with silt and coarser detrital matter from the caving banks of its channel feeders in the San Francisco, Mogollan and Tularosa Ranges." Frank H. Olmsted, Report on Gila River Flood Control in Graham County, Arizona, and Hydrography on the Mountain Watershed orThat Stream in Arizona and New Mexico (Washington, U.S. Department of the Interior, page 38. 22 "Reviewing the Storm," Arizona Republican, 4 March 23 "Erosion and Overflow, Gila River, Ariz.," 16 March in U.S. Sen- ate, Congress, 1st Session, Calendar No. Report No. p. 4.

24 "Gila Pours Around Both Bridge Ends," Arizona Republican, 24 December The newspaper reported with tongue in cheek about the first wooden struc- ture at Florence, illustrating the precarious nature of bridging the Gila: The flanking at both ends of the new state bridge at Florence by the angry Gila reminds old-timers that once there was a wooden bridge there that promised to become the longest structure of the kind in the world. That championship would have been achieved if they had not run out of lumber. When the bridge was con- structed. It was made long enough to fit the river. But when a flood came and cut around one end of the bridge and gave evidence of a permanency of chan- nel, another span was built to accommodate it.

Thus flood after flood made a new span necessary at one end or the other until the bridge had stretched across a considerable part of Pinat county. It looked for a time as if the counties of Plma and Maricopa would be called upon to help support this thriving and growing bridge. But before tt extended beyond the boundaries of Pinat. other floods came and washed out the new spans at either end and finally took all the structure away except the middle span, which stood there for years, a monument to the failure of man to bridge the universe. 25 Fourth Biennial Report o/ the State Engineer, p. 65. m Whispering Pines Bridge m HAER No. AZ-48 B page 20 26 Frank H. Olmsted, Report on Gila River Flood Control..., p. 35. 27 Ibid. 2e Ibid. 29 Claude W.

McKenzie, "Wanderers Go to Work," Arizona Highways, June pp. 10, 22. ^"Easement: A.T. Vaughn and wife, to United States, 12 July Road # 66' R, with Reversionary Clause," noted in Tonto Land Status Book, located at Tonto National Forest Headquarters, Phoenix, Arizona. The re-erection date for the Whispering Pines Bridge cannot be definitively stated, but the date can be inferred with some confidence from: U.S.D. A., Forest Service, "Statis- tics, Southwestern Region, Arizona and New Mexico," 1 March 1 March 1 March 1 March and 1 March 31 "The fault [for bridge failures] cannot be laid at the door of the engineer, although he is not infallible," explained Arizona Highway Department Bridge Engineer Ralph Hoffman. "He can only go as far as the funds provided will per- mit.

The State spends millions to build surfaced roads making them passable in all kinds of weather and leaves an unprotected gap here and there for the reason that the engineer is trying to make his money cover as much mileage as possible." Ralph A. Hoffman, "Lack of Finances Held Responsible for Washing Away of Bridges in Flood Times," Arizona Highways, January pp. 88 Whispering Pines Bridge M HAER No. AZ-48 a page 21 Bibliography PUBLISHED

Sources

Barnes, Will C. Arizona Place Names. Tucson, Arizona: University of Arizona Press, reprint edition, Calvin, Ross. River oithe Sun: Stories oithe Storied Gila. Albuquerque: Univer- sity of New Mexico Press, Code, Edwin. The Gila: River of the Southwest. New York: Rinehart and Com- pany, inc., Dale, Edward Everett. The Indians oi the Southwest: A Century of Development Under the United States. Norman, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press, Granger, Howell. X Marks the Place: Historical Names of Places in Arizona. Tucson, Arizona: Falconer Publishing Company, Hoffman, R.A. "Lack of Finances Held Responsible for Washing Away of Bridges in Flood Times." Arizona Highways, January Kansas City Directories, Lamar, Howard R. The Reader's Encyclopedia of the American West.

New York: Harper and Row, McKenzie, Claude W. "Wanderers Go to Work." Arizona Highways, June Pruscha, Francis Paul. The Great Father: The United States Government and the American Indians. Lincoln, Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press, Stuart, Paul. Thelndian Office: Growth and Development of an American Institu- tion, Ann Arbor, Michigan: UMI Press, Trimble, Marshall. Arizona: A Panoramic History of a Frontier State. Garden City, New York: Doubleday and Company, Utley, Robert M. The Indian Frontier of the American West: Albu- querque: University of New Mexico Press, Waddell, J.A.L. Bridge Engineering. London: John Wiley and Sons, m Whispering Pines Bridge m HAER No.

AZ-48 m page 22 NEWSPAPER ARTICLES (listed chronologically) "The Raging Elements." Arizona Republican, 19 February "Salt River Booming." Arizona Republican, 19 February "Waters Subsiding." Arizona Republican, 21 February "Down the Gila." Arizona Republican, 22 February "Storms in Arizona." Arizona Republican, 24 February "Reached the Climax." Arizona Republican, 25 February "The Gila Is Raging." Arizona Republican, 26 February "News of High Water." Arizona Republican, 27 February "Driftwood at Hand: Great Damage on the Lower Gila." Arizona Republican, 28 February "Flooding." Arizona Sentinel, 28 February "Reviewing the Storm." Arizona Republican, 4 March "A Tumbling Tawny Waste of Water." Arizona Republican, 28 November "Anger of the Salt Rapidly Subsiding." Arizona Republican, 29 November "Storage Dam Submerged." Arizona Republican, 17 December "Several People Drowned." Arizona Republican, 24 December "Gila Pours Around Both Bridge Ends." Arizona Republican, 24 December "Gila's Flood Highest Since Man's Memory." Arizona Republican, 25 December "Storm Brings Huge Store of Water for Reservoir; Tears Holes in Five Canal tems." Arizona Republican, 30 January "Storm That Flooded Valley Adds Water Enough for Long Summer's Irrigation System." Arizona Republican, 31 January "Rising River Drives Many from Lowland." Arizona Republican, 31 January $ Whispering Pines Bridge B HAER No.

A2-48 page 23 Arizona [Florence] Blade-Tribune, 24 July 1 August "Salt River Rages." Arizona Republican, 19 January "River High at Yuma and Much Alarm Is Felt." Arizona Republican, 20 January "Southern Pier of Bridge over Gila at Sacaton Gives Away." Arizona Republican, 21 January "Eleven Is Toll of Storm in Southern California Towns." Arizona Republican, 21 January "Ray Isolated by Rising of Gila." Arizona Republican, 21 January "Arizona Eastern Bridge at Gila Has Lost Eight Spans." Arizona Republican, 22 January "Gila Stubbornly Defies All Attempts to Get Line Across." Arizona Republican, 23 January "Water Rising All Along the Gila and Its Tributaries." Arizona Sentinel, 27 Jan- uary "Flood Conditions Reported Most Serious; Salt and Verde Rising." Arizona Repub- lican, 29 January "Colorado Reaches Crest and Yuma Flood Menace Believed Passed." Arizona Republican, 1 February "Swollen by Heavy Rains Rivers and Creek Leave Banks, Start on Rampage." Arizona Republican, 28 November "Flood Crest Passes; Center St.

Bridge to be Repaired Today." Arizona Republi- can, 24 February "Salt River Rages under Center Street Bridge; Approaches in No Danger; River- side Flooded." Arizona Republican, 18 February "Yuma Prepares for Big Flood in Colorado." Arizona Republican, 18 February "Rampage of Salt River Recalls Flood of and Damage to Phoenix." Arizona Republican, 19 February "Flood Waters Fill Gila River." Arizona Republican, 18 February M Whispering Pines Bridge M HAER No. AZ-48 page 24 GOVERNMENT DOCUMENTS Abbe, Don, et al. "Cameron Suspension Bridge: National Register of Historic Places Registration Form." June Arizona Highway Department. "History of the Arizona Highway Department." Unpublished manuscript, "Erosion and Overflow, Gila River, Ariz." 16March U.S.

Senate, 64thCon- gress, 1st Session, Calendar No. Report No. Fourth Biennial Report of the State Engineer to the Governor of the State of Ari- zona. Phoenix: Republican Print Shop, Fraser, Clayton B. "Arizona Bridge Inventory." Report for Arizona Department of Transportation, Congress, 1st Session Congress, 2nd Session Olmsted, Frank M. Report on Gila River Flood Control in Graham County, Ari- zona, and Hydrography on the Mountain Watershed of That Stream in Ari- zona and New Mexico. Washington, U.S. Department of the Interior, Proceedings of the Graham County Board of Supervisors. Located at Graham County Courthouse, Safford, Arizona.

Report of the State Engineer of the State of Arizona: July 1, to June 30, Phoenix: Arizona State Press, Second Report of the State Engineer to the State Highway Commission. Phoenix: The McNeil Company, Third Biennial Report of the State Engineer to the Governor and the Commission of the State Institutions. Phoenix: Arizona State Press, U.S.D.A., Forest Service. "Statistics, Southwestern Region, Arizona and New Mexi- co." 1 March 1 March 1 March 1 March 1 March U.S.D.I., Office of Indian Affairs. "Proposed Bridge across Gila River, San Carlos Indian Reservation, Arizona." Two-sheet set of construction drawings, dated July Located at the Arizona State Library, Phoenix, Arizona.