Area less than one acre NRHP Reference # 76000018 Opened 1878 Width 5.2 m Body of water Laughery Creek | Built 1868 (1868) Added to NRHP September 29, 1976 Total length 91 m Location Dearborn County, Indiana | |
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Built by Wrought Iron Bridge Company; Green, William & Co. Architectural style Triple-intersection Pratt Bridge type Truss bridge, Triple whipple truss Similar Hillforest, Deam Lake State Recreatio, Hollywood Casino Lawrenceburg, Perfect North Slopes, Tanner's Creek Generatin | ||
The Laughery Creek Bridge is an truss bridge on the border of Dearborn County, Indiana and Ohio County, Indiana. It crosses Laughery Creek. This bridge was built in 1878. The Wrought Iron Bridge Company, a prolific late 19th-century bridge company, constructed the bridge. The bridge is seated on stone abutments. The deck surface is not original and is currently concrete. The bridge, nearly 300 feet in length, is a single span pin connected triple intersection Pratt through truss, and is the only example in the world of this truss type. The name bridge's nickname, "Triple Whipple Bridge" is a play on words. The double-intersection Pratt, which was called the Whipple truss configuration, was a far more common variation of the standard Pratt configuration. Since the Laughery Creek Bridge's members have three intersections instead of two, this gives rise to the "Triple Whipple" name. This bridge was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1976.
After closing in the 1970s, the bridge fell into serious disrepair, landing it on the Indiana’s 10 Most Endangered places list in 1993. A combination of federal funds and matching funds from Dearborn and Ohio Counties allowed the bridge to be refurbished and converted to pedestrian use in 2009.