Floods knocks out historic Jones County bridge

A privately owned historic bridge over the Maquoketa River was claimed by flooding in Jones County Saturday.

Jones County Historic Preservation Commission Chair Rose Rohr confirmed confirmed that the  Corbett's Mill Bridge three miles northeast of Scotch Grove collapsed into the river Saturday morning after the rising waters first tore off much of the wooden decking.

“It was a really old, very historic bridge,” Rohr said.

The Corbett's Mill Bridge was manufactured in 1871 by Miller, Jamison & Co., according to the publication Bowstring Arch Bridges of Iowa. Anamosa archeologist Mike Finn, who wrote the publication for the Iowa Department of Transportation, said the bridge was owned by Tom Barry, a California entrepreneur who restored it to working order for use with a log hunting lodge he built nearby.

Bow arch bridges were the second generation of bridges built in Iowa, Finn said, replacing the original wooden bridges built by early settlers. They are revered for their graceful, economical design, in which the steel spans that hold up the decking are supported by steel rods suspended from steel arches.

The bridge was originally known as the Eby's Mill Bridge, according to Finn's publication. It carried public traffic, but it was replaced in 1958 with a new Eby's Mill Bridge after County Road X-73 was rerouted to eliminate a loop around a mill pond.

The new Eby's Mill Bridge was replaced by Jones County after it was washed out in the floods of June 2008.

Jones County Engineer Mike McClain was about to discount fears that the dislodged Corbett's Mill Bridge might have washed into and damaged the new Eby's Mill Bridge. He said the Eby's Mill Bridge appeared undamaged Monday, July 26, but the waters of the Maquoketa River were too high to determine where the old Corbett's Mill Bridge had settled.

Corbett's Mill Bridge had been so deterioated that it was unusable  in 2002 when Barry hired Taylor Construction of New Vienna to refurbish it, according to Finn. He said Barry is a successful entrepreneur who lives in California.

One of the few privately-owned bowstring bridges in Iowa was destroyed by flooding on the Maquoketa River early Saturday.

The Corbett's Mill Bridge three miles north of Scotch Grove had  gone private in 1958 after Jones County built the new Eby's Mill Bridge several hunded meters upstream.

Archeologist Mike Finn of Anamosa  restored by private owner Tom Barry, according to Mike Finn,