Photograph of Mottville Camelback Bridge — Photograph by All Things Michigan, CC BY-SA 2.0. Via Wikimedia Commons.

US 12 St. Joseph River Bridge

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1991.

From the record

“Joseph River Bridge is a three-span camelback bridge in Mottville, Michigan, that carried U.S. Built in 1922, it is the fourth bridge to cross the river at this location.”
Wikipedia article US 12-St. Joseph River Bridge, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 17 National Register listings published here for St. Joseph County · listed in 1991 · 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 12 over the St. Joseph R., Mottville Township, Mottville, 49099
When was it listed? April 1991
Category. structure
Township. Mottville township
National Register reference number. 91000388 - 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

26 since 2003

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 26 fires within 5 miles of US 12 St. Joseph River Bridge between 2003 and 2020, burning about 49 acres in total. 3 started naturally. 1 was 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	10
Equipment and vehicle use	10
Natural	3
Recreation and ceremony	2
Arson/incendiarism	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
4 August 2020	Natural	1.0 acres	Michigan Department of Natural Resources	WHITE PIGEON TWP FD 107 - 2020
20 July 2003	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	1.0 acres	Michigan Department of Natural Resources	not named
19 July 2018	Natural	1.0 acres	Michigan Department of Natural Resources	WHITE PIGEON TWP FD 0000120 - 2018
12 July 2019	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	1.0 acres	Michigan Department of Natural Resources	WHITE PIGEON TWP FD 0097 - 2019
26 June 2017	Arson/incendiarism	13 acres	Michigan Department of Natural Resources	ST JOSEPH 01 MICHIANA MULCH
20 June 2020	Recreation and ceremony	1.0 acres	Michigan Department of Natural Resources	WHITE PIGEON TWP FD 085 - 2020
20 June 2020	Recreation and ceremony	1.0 acres	Michigan Department of Natural Resources	WHITE PIGEON TWP FD 086 - 2020
2 May 2020	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	1.0 acres	Michigan Department of Natural Resources	CONSTANTINE FD 109 - 2020

Every fire recorded in St. Joseph County

Mines and quarries near this property

1 within 5 miles

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 1 working within 5 miles of US 12 St. Joseph River Bridge: 1 producer. All of them still produce. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Where	Site	Commodity	Status	Recorded
	L-Bob Gravel Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Producer

Every working recorded in St. Joseph County

Storms near this property

2 since 2015

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Mottville, the town this property stands in, in 2 storm reports between 2015 and 2018: 2 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
May 2018	Thunderstorm Wind	Mottville	-	Amateur radio operators reported power poles were blown down.
July 2015	Thunderstorm Wind	Mottville	-	A tree was downed near Mottville, blocking State Route 12.

Every storm recorded in St. Joseph 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
Wahbememe Burial Site and Monument	4.8 miles	1995
Nettleton-Cond House	5.4 miles	2021
Art Gallery Building	5.4 miles	1980
Constantine Historic Commercial District	5.4 miles	1985
Morse-Scoville House	5.4 miles	1996
Gov. John S. Barry House	5.4 miles	1972

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 91000388 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
St. Joseph County	All 17 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.