Bridge over Arkansas River

Built in 1937. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1985.

From the record

“The Bridge over Arkansas River in Johnson Village, Colorado, near Buena Vista, is a Pratt deck truss bridge built in 1937. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1985.”
Wikipedia article Bridge over Arkansas River, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 46 National Register listings published here for Chaffee County · listed in 1985 · category: Structure · built in 1937.

Sources: the Wikipedia article · the case file at the National Archives · the National Register database, National Park Service

The listing

What is counted as historic. The nomination lists 1 structure as contributing to the listing.
Address. U.S. Hwy 24, Buena Vista, 81211
When was it listed? February 1985
Category. structure
Also known as. Vehicular Bridges in Colorado TR
Census division. Buena Vista
When was it built? 1937
National Register reference number. 85000190 - the number the National Park Service assigned this property when it was listed, and the key its nomination file is catalogued under at the National Archives.

Fires near this property

105 since 1992

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 105 fires within 5 miles of Bridge over Arkansas River between 1992 and 2020, burning about 58 acres in total. 27 started naturally. 9 were recorded as arson. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Reported cause	Fires
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	41
Natural	27
Recreation and ceremony	18
Arson/incendiarism	9
Smoking	5
Equipment and vehicle use	4
Debris and open burning	1

The most recent of them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service that recorded it.

Date	Cause	Size	Reported by	Name on the report
9 September 2019	Natural	under an acre	Front Range District Office	HOPP GULCH
5 September 2019	Natural	under an acre	Front Range District Office	SUGAR LOAF
5 September 1998	Natural	under an acre	Pike and San Isabel National Forest	CENTRY
4 September 2002	Arson/incendiarism	under an acre	Royal Gorge Field Office	MIDLAND
4 September 2002	Arson/incendiarism	1.5 acres	Royal Gorge Field Office	LOSTSPRING
4 September 2002	Arson/incendiarism	1.0 acres	Royal Gorge Field Office	HOP CANYON
3 September 2014	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Sedgwick Volunteer Fire Department	UNKNOWN
3 September 2007	Natural	under an acre	Royal Gorge Field Office	TIE GULCH

Every fire recorded in Chaffee County

Mines and quarries near this property

10 of 34 shown

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 34 workings within 5 miles of Bridge over Arkansas River: 18 past producers, 14 occurrences, 2 producers. 2 still produce. What was taken out: Gold, Sand and Gravel, Construction, Silver, Lead. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Site	Commodity	Status	Recorded
Be True	Uranium, Vanadium	Past Producer
Buena Vista	Gold, Platinum	Occurrence	Stream Placer
Josephine	Marble, Dimension	Past Producer
Luella Pegmatite	Feldspar, REE, Bismuth, Fluorine-Fluorite	Past Producer	1946
Mary A Claims	Gold, Copper	Past Producer
Nathrop Ruby Mt.	Pumice, Perlite	Occurrence	Pumice
Quaker	Lead, Zinc	Past Producer
Unidentified Monazite Occurrence	Uranium, REE	Occurrence	Euxenite, Monazite
Crystal No. 8	REE	Occurrence	Allanite, Euxenite
Crystal No. 8 Mine	Feldspar, REE	Past Producer	Allanite, Euxenite, Microcline

Every working recorded in Chaffee County

Storms near this property

10 since 2002

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Buena Vista, the town this property stands in, in 10 storm reports between 2002 and 2021: 7 flash flood, 2 lightning, 1 thunderstorm wind. The reports record 2 injuries. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date opens the federal record of that event.

When	Event	Place named	Harm	What the report says
July 2002	Flash Flood	Buena Vista	2 hurt, $100,000	no account filed
June 2005	Lightning	Buena Vista	$50,000	no account filed
July 2007	Flash Flood	Buena Vista	$20,000	Flash flooding occurred, which brought 2 to 3 feet of standing water and mud in low lying residental areas of Buena Vista.
July 2021	Flash Flood	Buena Vista	-	Heavy rainfall washed out County road 371, from a small drainage which flows across the road. Two cars were stuck in the mud.
July 2021	Flash Flood	Buena Vista	-	County road 304 was washed out.
July 2017	Flash Flood	Buena Vista	-	A flash flood and mud flow on US Highway 285 near Johnson Village made the road impassible for a time.
August 2004	Flash Flood	Buena Vista	-	The ongoing mudslides occurred on Cottonwood Pass road, causing a threat to motorists, campers, and nearby homeowners.
August 2004	Flash Flood	Buena Vista	-	In total, five mudslides occurred on Cottonwood Pass Road (CR 306) about one mile west of the hot springs pool. The mud on the road ranged from two to 14 feet deep. Cottonwood Hot Springs and several residences needed to be evacuated as a precaution.
July 2004	Lightning	Buena Vista	-	While no humans were affected, a pig was struck by lightning and killed. The pig was a prized swine, scheduled to be entered in the 4-H competition at the Chaffee County Fair.
June 2011	Thunderstorm Wind	Buena Vista	-	no account filed

Every storm recorded in Chaffee County

Map coverage status

No historic map-sheet match is published for this property yet. That does not mean no map exists. This record needs a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary. Browse the county's mapped places while that work is pending.

Listed places nearby

6 within 8 miles

Other National Register properties close enough to walk or drive between, ordered by distance from this one. Both positions come from the same geocoding pass that matched these properties to their map sheets.

Property	Distance	Listed
Nachtrieb-Kelly Ranch	2.1 miles	2017
William and Anna Fay House	2.4 miles	2015
Chaffee County Courthouse and Jail Buildings	2.4 miles	1979
Buena Vista Ranger Station	2.4 miles	2022
Jacobs Building	2.5 miles	2011
Grace Episcopal Church	2.5 miles	1978

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 85000190 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Chaffee County	All 46 listed properties in this county.

Provenance

Listing record. National Park Service National Register of Historic Places, listed-properties dataset, current to 2026-05-22.
Map join. Address geocoded through the United States Census geocoder, then tested against the published boundary of every sheet in the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection.
How this page is made. Listing fields come from federal records; map-sheet coverage is a labelled coordinate-to-boundary calculation, not a source-field claim.
Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.
Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.
Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.