Pecos River High Bridge

The highway bridge has a famous railroad predecessor nearby. The Pecos High Bridge of 1892 was built by the Phoenix Bridge Company of Phoenixville, Pennsylvania, in only eighty-seven working days, from November 3, 1891, to February 20, 1892, and the first train across, on March 30, 1892, was a special carrying Southern Pacific president C. P. Huntington. The metal viaduct ran 2,180 feet and carried its rails 321 feet above the river. It was reinforced in 1909-10, when its length was cut to 1,516 feet, and again in 1929, and it was dismantled in 1949.

What the plaque says

Pecos River High Bridge High canyon walls dominate the last sixty miles of the Pecos River before it enters the Rio Grande. The Southern Pacific Railroad built the first high bridge across the Pecos River in 1891. The first highway bridge to span the river was built one mile down river from here in 1923. Just fifty feet above water, the 1923 bridge was destroyed by floodwaters in 1954. Two temporary low water bridges built nearby in 1954 and 1955 also were destroyed by floodwaters. A new 1,310-feet long bridge was completed here in 1957. At 273 feet above the river, it is the highest highway bridge in Texas. (1995)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Pecos River Overlook — steps away
  A roadside pullout at the east end of the US-90 bridge, looking down into the gorge that made the Pecos a barrier for travelers and a byword for the edge of the law.
• Seminole Canyon State Park and Historic Site — 2.5 mi
  The state park west of Comstock where rangers lead visitors down to Fate Bell Shelter and its Pecos River-style paintings, some three to four thousand years old.
• Shumla Archaeological Research and Education Center — 11 mi
  The Comstock research center that documents the Lower Pecos murals, which it calls the oldest books in North America, and opens its headquarters to visitors four days a week.
• Judge Roy Bean Visitor Center — 15 mi
  The state travel center at Langtry, built around the saloon where Roy Bean held court as justice of the peace for twenty years, in a town named for a railroad foreman.

More markers nearby

• Railroad Bridges Over the Pecos — steps away
• Medal of Honor Fight, 1875 — steps away
• The Pecos River in Literature and Folklore — steps away
• Site of Vinegarroon — 4.6 mi