Take a walk on Cedar Hill pedestrian bridge; Work completed to make bridge safe.
A historic pedestrian bridge over the Animas River that once served as an important point of access for Cedar Hill has been renovated by San Juan County and is open again for the first time in seven years.
The bridge, which joins County Road 2380 and County Road 2345 for walkers and bicyclists, was closed in the spring of 2017 because of safety concerns about its abutments and decking after vehicle traffic was prohibited in the 1990s. In February 2023, the San Juan County Commission awarded a $600,000 contract to TRC Construction Inc. of Flora Vista to renovate the bridge, and that work recently was finished.
County Manager Mike Stark announced the project’s completion at the conclusion of the Tuesday, April 16 County Commission meeting in Aztec.
“It is a historic bridge,” Stark said. “It took some time for us to get it spiffed up.”
Commissioner Steve Lanier followed Stark’s announcement with a facetious one of his own.
“For the record, I wasn’t born yet,” he quipped.
The original structure across the river at the location was a toll bridge that was built in 1894, but it was washed away in a 1911 flood, Stark said last year, according to The Daily Times archives.
A 2018 estimate for the renovation project that was prepared for the county by officials at Bach Steel describes the bridge as “an extremely rare surviving example of a pin-connected highway truss bridge in New Mexico. Although uncommon nationwide due to attrition, this type of bridge is particularly rare in New Mexico and the other states in this region.”
Previously: Commission will consider awarding contract for Cedar Hill bridge work
Bach Steel officials also noted that the bridge was remarkable for its lack of deterioration.
“Its rural location, and perhaps even the dry climate of the area have allowed much of the this truss to remain in nearly like-new condition,” they write. “As such, the in-kind restoration needed is minimal. The lack of deterioration also sets this bridge apart from similar bridges found elsewhere in the country, which often suffer extensive section 3 loss and pack rust. Thus, the Cedar Hill Bridge is a uniquely intact surviving example of early 20th Century bridge construction.”
County spokesman Devin Neeley said the bridge also is thought to be a so-called “catalog bridge,” or a structure that was prefabricated by one of various companies to meet local specifications. Local government officials would cite the number of lanes they wanted and the dimensions of the span in their order to the company, and the pieces of the bridge would be delivered to that site for assembly by local craftsmen or workers from the fabricating company.
Referring to the Bach Steel estimate, Neeley said the bridge also is thought to be eligible for a listing on the National Register of Historic Places, which would give it some value as a tourist attraction.
County officials are planning a ribbon-cutting ceremony to celebrate the bridge’s renovation at 2 p.m. Tuesday, April 30.
Mike Easterling can be reached at 505-564-4610 or measterling@daily-times.com. Support local journalism with a digital subscription: http://bit.ly/2I6TU0e.
This article originally appeared on Farmington Daily Times: Renovation of Cedar Hill pedestrian bridge completed
