Paddock Viaduct

The viaduct has more than one name and more than one honor. Also called the Main Street Viaduct, it was built by the Hannan-Hickey Brothers to a design by the St. Louis firm Brenneke and Fay, according to Wikipedia. It joined the National Register in 1976, became a Texas State Antiquities Landmark in 1981 and was recorded by the Historic American Engineering Record in 1996. The American Society of Civil Engineers named it a Texas historic civil engineering landmark, the Handbook of Texas says, and Wikipedia notes renovations in 1965 and 1988.

What the plaque says

Paddock Viaduct Low-water crossing and ferries originally provided the only access across the Trinity River at this location, connecting the downtown area of Fort Worth with northern sections of the city. A two-lane suspension bridge, constructed near this site in the 1890s, proved inadequate for the growing population. This span, designed by the St. Louis firm of Brenneke and Fay, was built in 1914. It was the first reinforced concrete arch in the nation to use self-supporting, reinforcing steel. The bridge is named in honor of B.B. Paddock, former state legislator and mayor of the city. (1980)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Tarrant County Courthouse — steps away
  A pink-granite courthouse of 1895 on the bluff where the Army set up Fort Worth in 1849, in a county named for the man who led the 1841 attack on the Native villages of Village Creek.
• Kimbell Art Museum — 1.9 mi
  Louis Kahn's cycloid-vaulted museum of 1972, built from Kay Kimbell's bequest and joined in 2013 by Renzo Piano's pavilion for the exhibitions the Kahn galleries could not hold.
• Fort Worth Stockyards — 2.2 mi
  The brick-street cattle market where Armour and Swift built packing plants in 1902, now a National Register district with a Coliseum, a museum and a longhorn drive twice a day.
• National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame — 2.3 mi
  A hall of fame begun in Hereford in 1975 to honor rodeo women, widened in 1977 to Western heritage, and housed in Fort Worth's Cultural District since 2002.

More markers nearby

• Eastern Cattle Trail — steps away
• Fort Worth "Where the West Begins" — steps away
• Allen Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church — 0.4 mi
• First Christian Church of Fort Worth — 0.4 mi