Old Alton Bridge

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1988.

From the record

“Old Alton Bridge, also known as Goatman's Bridge, is a historic iron truss bridge connecting the Texas cities of Denton and Copper Canyon. Built in 1884 by the King Iron Bridge Manufacturing Company, it originally carried horses and later automobiles over Hickory Creek at a location that once was a popular ford for crossing cattle.”
Wikipedia article Old Alton Bridge, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 13 National Register listings published here for Denton County · listed in 1988 · 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. Copper Canyon Rd., Copper Canyon, 76210
When was it listed? July 1988
Category. structure
Census division. Lewisville-Flower Mound
Architect. King Bridge Company
National Register reference number. 88000979 - 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

99 since 2005

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 99 fires within 5 miles of Old Alton Bridge between 2005 and 2017, burning about 329 acres in total. None started naturally. 2 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
Debris and open burning	53
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	32
Equipment and vehicle use	5
Smoking	4
Arson/incendiarism	2
Railroad operations and maintenance	2
Misuse of fire by a minor	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
16 September 2014	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Texas A & M Forest Service	LONG ROAD
16 September 2009	Debris and open burning	1.0 acres	Texas A & M Forest Service	HAWKS RD
23 August 2014	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Texas A & M Forest Service	9100 TEASLEY
20 August 2009	Debris and open burning	1.0 acres	Texas A & M Forest Service	JERNIGAN
16 August 2010	Equipment and vehicle use	2.0 acres	Texas A & M Forest Service	SWISHER ROAD FIRE
6 July 2014	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Texas A & M Forest Service	2400 JAMES STREET
30 July 2011	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Texas A & M Forest Service	BRAZOS @ POST OAK
3 July 2009	Equipment and vehicle use	1.5 acres	Texas A & M Forest Service	KYLE CT

Every fire recorded in Denton 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

5 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
Denton County Courthouse	6.2 miles	1977
West Denton Residential Historic District	6.5 miles	2021
Pioneer Woman Monument	6.7 miles	2018
Denton County Courthouse Square Historic District	6.8 miles	2000
Fairhaven Retirement Home	7.5 miles	2019

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 88000979 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Denton County	All 13 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.