Benville Bridge

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1996.

From the record

“Benville Bridge, also known as Bridge #27, is a historic stone-arch bridge located on the grounds of Jefferson Proving Ground in Bigger Township, Jennings County, Indiana. It was built in 1908, and is a three-span, round arch bridge.”
Wikipedia article Benville Bridge, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 10 National Register listings published here for Jennings County · listed in 1996 · category: Structure.

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. US Army Proving Ground, approximately 1 mi. E off Perimeter Rd., San Jacinto
When was it listed? July 1996
Category. structure
Township. Bigger township
National Register reference number. 96000789 - 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

39 since 2001

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 39 fires within 5 miles of Benville Bridge between 2001 and 2020, burning about 3,294 acres in total. None started naturally. 15 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	18
Arson/incendiarism	15
Debris and open burning	2
Equipment and vehicle use	2
Firearms and explosives use	2

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
15 September 2017	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	6.5 acres	Big Oaks National Wildlife Refuge	CAMERA FIRE
12 September 2011	Arson/incendiarism	25 acres	Big Oaks National Wildlife Refuge	PGL FIRE
1 September 2011	Arson/incendiarism	280 acres	Big Oaks National Wildlife Refuge	K ROAD FIRE
30 August 2013	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	4.0 acres	Big Oaks National Wildlife Refuge	RANGE 9 FIRE
20 July 2018	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	34 acres	Big Oaks National Wildlife Refuge	SUMMER PGM FIRE
6 June 2012	Arson/incendiarism	5.0 acres	Big Oaks National Wildlife Refuge	RANGE 3 FIRE
28 June 2012	Arson/incendiarism	12 acres	Big Oaks National Wildlife Refuge	RANGE 5 FIRE
26 June 2012	Arson/incendiarism	5.0 acres	Big Oaks National Wildlife Refuge	RANGE 4 FIRE

Every fire recorded in Jennings County

Storms near this property

3 since 1999

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names San Jacinto, the town this property stands in, in 3 storm reports between 1999 and 2012: 2 tornado, 1 thunderstorm wind. No death or injury is recorded in these reports. 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
April 1999	Tornado (F3)	San Jacinto	$250,000	A strong F3 tornado moved across the extreme southeastern part of the county significantly damaging 2 homes and destroying 4 barns. 2 high tension power line towers were toppled as well. The tornado then moved northeast out of the Indianapolis CWA.
July 2012	Thunderstorm Wind	San Jacinto	$20,000	Twenty trees were downed from Paris Crossing to State Route 7 in the southeast part of the county due to damaging thunderstorm wind gusts.
August 2006	Tornado (F0)	San Jacinto	$10,000	A weak tornado touched down in rural southeast Jennings County near the small town of San Jacinto on the evening of 14 August 2006. The tornado tore half of a tin roof off a farm barn, and downed several trees. It also did superficial trim damage to a home, and flipped a swingset and an old trailer.

Every storm recorded in Jennings 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

2 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.

Photograph	Property	Distance	Listed
	Hicklin House and Settlement	3.0 miles	2023
	Edward's Ford Bridge	3.7 miles	1996

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 96000789 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Jennings County	All 10 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.
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.