Dearborn River High Bridge

Built in 1897, the Dearborn River High Bridge is the last surviving example of a pin-connected Pratt half-deck truss bridge in the United States. The structure is unusual in that the deck is attached midway on the trusses instead of at the bottom or top as was common to truss structures in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The uncommon design was tailored specifically to the Dearborn River Canyon by the structure’s builder, the King Bridge Company of Cleveland, Ohio. The bridge provided access to the railroad in Augusta and Wolf Creek for the farmers and ranchers who lived in this area. The Dearborn River High Bridge cost Lewis & Clark County $9,000 when it was constructed. The King Bridge Company built bridges throughout southwest Montana from 1892 to about 1902. This was the only bridge of this rare design built by the company. The structure was built during the golden age of steel bridge-building in Montana from 1887 to 1915, when many of the state’s steel truss bridges were built by specialized companies based in the Midwest and Montana. The bridge is located above a river ford that was used for generations by the Blackfeet and other tribes to travel to the Great Plains to hunt buffalo. The bridge was restored by Lewis & Clark County and the Montana Department of Transportation in 2003.