Lower Elgin Road Bridge at Wilbarger Creek

Built in 1888. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2017.

From the record

One of 101 National Register listings published here for Bastrop County · listed in 2017 · category: Structure · built in 1888.

Sources: 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. Cty. Rd. 55 at Wilbarger Cr., Utley, 78621
When was it listed? April 2017
Category. structure
Also known as. Road Infrastructure of Texas, 1866-1965 MPS
Census division. Elgin
When was it built? 1888
National Register reference number. 100000860 - assigned by the National Park Service when the property was listed.

Fires near this property

115 since 1993

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 115 fires within 5 miles of Lower Elgin Road Bridge at Wilbarger Creek between 1993 and 2018, burning about 669 acres in total. 1 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
Debris and open burning	78
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	15
Equipment and vehicle use	12
Recreation and ceremony	3
Power generation/transmission/distribution	2
Smoking	2
Natural	1
Arson/incendiarism	1
Other causes	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
5 September 2009	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Texas A & M Forest Service	133 HILLCREST CIRCLE
4 September 2009	Natural	under an acre	Texas A & M Forest Service	310 WILBARGER BEND RD
3 September 1999	Debris and open burning	5.0 acres	Texas A & M Forest Service	not named
2 September 2013	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Texas A & M Forest Service	SETTLERS TRL
15 September 2013	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Texas A & M Forest Service	LAZY RIVER LN
9 August 2000	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	6.0 acres	Texas A & M Forest Service	SOUTH BRANCH - 59
8 August 2008	Equipment and vehicle use	1.0 acres	Texas A & M Forest Service	not named
8 August 1998	Equipment and vehicle use	10 acres	Texas A & M Forest Service	not named

Every fire recorded in Bastrop County

Storms near this property

9 since 1993

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Utley, the town this property stands in, in 9 storm reports between 1993 and 2025: 4 flash flood, 3 hail, 1 thunderstorm wind, 1 tornado. 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
August 2003	Thunderstorm Wind	Utley	$100,000	As the line of thunderstorms associated with the late season cold front moved into Bastrop County, they produced severe winds that blew down scores of trees through the central part of the county. An NWS employee while traveling through Bastrop County also came across a car south of Bastrop that had been blown off the road by the winds.
March 2025	Hail	Utley	-	A thunderstorm produced penny size hail east of Wyldwood.
December 2024	Hail	Utley	-	A thunderstorm produced nickel size hail on Winchester Rd. west of Bastrop.
March 2022	Tornado (EF2)	Utley	-	The Elgin tornado began roughly 9 miles southwest of Elgin near Dry Creek Road and Union Lee Church Road. It moved northeast and crossed into Bastrop County near the end of Ingrid Dr. The tornado moved northeast crossing Upper Elgin River Rd., Balch Rd., Youngs Prairie Rd., and Crooked Hollow Rd. Significant damage was observed through this region to many homes. This included the destruction of multiple mobile homes, significant roof damage to numerous slab homes, two homes having their second story destroyed, numerous large tree limbs, tree trunks, and power poles snapped, barns destroyed, and a large electrical transmission tower toppled. Pockets of high-end EF-2 damage occurred through this region. The tornado continued northeast, crossing Monkey Rd., FM 1704, Hwy 95, and U.S. 290 producing damage to roofs of slab homes, mobile homes, trees, and power poles. Damage through this region was generally rated EF-1. As the tornado reached U.S. 290 it produced significant damage to a metal framed business, buckling the roof purlins and collapsing in the south facing wall. The tornado then rolled an adjacent mobile home into and partially on top of the south facing wall of another metal framed business. Three individuals in the mobile home were injured. Damage to the business and mobile home was on the order of high-end EF-1 to low-end EF-2. As the tornado crossed U.S. 290 a moving pickup truck was rolled onto its side, spun around 360 degrees, and rolled back upright where the driver continued down the road. Several power poles were also damaged along U.S. 290. As the tornado continue northeast a mobile home was completely destroyed off Old McDade Rd. From there the tornado gradually weakened and dissipated roughly 3 miles east-northeast of Elgin, near the intersection of FM 3000 and Mundine Rd. Damage was reported to 109 residences and one business. Of those, 32 residences were classified as major damage and 20 residences and one business were reported as destroyed. Peak wind speed was estimated at 130 mph.
April 2016	Flash Flood	Utley	-	Thunderstorms produced heavy rain that caused flash flooding closing Lower Elgin Rd. south of Elgin.
May 2016	Flash Flood	Utley	-	Thunderstorms produced heavy rain that caused flash flooding resulting in water rescues along FM969.
July 2012	Flash Flood	Utley	-	Thunderstorms produced heavy rain that caused flash flooding closing FM 969 one half mile north of Utley.
October 2006	Flash Flood	Utley	-	The thunderstorm line produced a general 1 to 2 inch rain over northern Bastrop County, with up to 4 inches between the towns of McDade and Paige. Flash flooding closed SH95 and FM2336.
March 1993	Hail	Utley	-	Half-dollar-size hail was reported in Utley by a weather observer. As a second areas of thunderstorms moved into the county, quarter-size hail was reported between Elgin and Bastrop. Five minutes later the Elgin Police reported quarter-size hail just south of Elgin. Hail up to softball-size was reported in Paige. At least one car had its windshield knocked out.

Every storm recorded in Bastrop 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.

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 100000860 in Record Group 79.
Bastrop County	All 101 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.