Ohio Street Bridge

The 1886 bridge was the work of one of the era's great bridge firms. The King Bridge Company of Cleveland, founded by Zenas King, was described as the largest highway bridge works in the country in the 1880s, with iron bridges standing as far away as California and the Wyoming Territory. It was disbanded in the 1920s. The 1911 span was a Pratt through truss by the Kansas City Bridge Company. In 2003 a bronze group by Jack Stephens was installed on the north bank, illustrating a legend about how the river got its name.

What the plaque says

Ohio Street Bridge Planning for construction of the first bridge at this site began soon after the organization of Wichita County in 1882. The structure was built by the King Bridge Company of Cleveland, Ohio, and formally dedicated on July 4, 1886. This second span, located west of the original bridge, was completed in 1911. Both provided a vital connection between the downtown area of Wichita Falls and northern sections of the city. The bridges were closed to vehicles in 1972 because of unsafe structural conditions and the older span was demolished. (1980)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• World's Littlest Skyscraper — 0.6 mi
  A four-story brick tower in downtown Wichita Falls, 40 feet tall and 10 feet wide, the leftover of a 1919 oil-boom office deal in which, the story goes, investors misread inches as feet.
• Kell House Museum — 1.0 mi
  The 1909 Classic Revival house of Frank Kell, the miller and railroad builder who helped make Wichita Falls a city, shown by guided tour with its family furniture still in place.
• Lake Arrowhead State Park — 13 mi
  A prairie park on the north shore of the Wichita Falls water-supply lake, which drowned the town of Halsell in 1965-66, with mesquite campsites, a lighted pier and more than 200 bird species.
• Clay County 1890 Jail Museum — 19 mi
  Henrietta's 1890 stone jail a block from the domed courthouse, now the county museum, with its original cells, a gallows that was never used and the sheriff's family quarters.

More markers nearby

• Hotter 'N Hell Hundred — 0.2 mi
• Joseph Sterling Bridwell — 0.4 mi
• Site of St. James Hotel — 0.6 mi
• Charlye Ola Farris — 0.6 mi