Tornillo-Guadalupe (Fabens-Caseta) Bridge

The river work behind this bridge grew out of Elephant Butte Dam. Once the dam tamed the Rio Grande in 1916, the river stopped flooding and could no longer scour its own bed; silt built up, the channel wandered, crops were lost and the boundary itself grew hard to find. The fix was a floodway 590 feet wide between levees averaging seven and a half feet high, which doubled as maintenance roads. Straightening cut this stretch from 155.2 miles to 85.6, and each nation yielded about 3,500 acres.

What the plaque says

Tornillo-Guadalupe (Fabens-Caseta) Bridge The Tornillo-Guadalupe International Bridge, known locally as the Fabens-Caseta Bridge, encouraged trade and commerce between the United States and Mexico for seventy-eight years (1938-2016), providing a symbolic and physical connection between the American and Mexican Cultures. It was constructed a half mile southwest of this location in 1938 as part of the Rio Grande rectification project of the international boundary commission. It was demolished in 2016. This bridge, along with its sister bridge linking Fort Hancock, Texas, with El Porvenir, Chihuahua, were cornerstones of the rectification project stretching from El Paso, Texas, to Little Box Canyon south of Fort Guitman, Texas, implemented in accordance with the convention between the United States and Mexico of February 1, 1933. The Austin Bridge Company of Dallas constructed the bridge from March 14 to June 30, 1938, for $31,000. It was the last structure of the Rio Grande Rectification Project. The purpose of the rectification project was to provide flood protection to urban, suburban and agricultural lands, and to stabilize the flood-prone international boundary line in the El Paso-Juárez Valley. This was accomplished by straightening the meandering Rio Grande Channel and constructing flood control levees in both countries. A large-scale endeavor, the construction for the rectification project provided 3.8 million man-hours of employment in the midst of the great depression. The Fabens-Caseta Bridge was a significant example of a steel i-beam bridge that embodied the distinctive characteristics of 1930s-era bridge construction. (2017)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• San Elizario Historic District — 13 mi
  A plaza of adobe buildings at the end of the El Paso Mission Trail: an 1877 chapel, Gregorio Garcia's portaled house and the old county jail of Billy the Kid legend.
• Socorro Mission (Nuestra Senora de la Limpia Concepcion del Socorro) — 18 mi
  Socorro's adobe church on the El Paso Mission Trail, with walls five feet thick, carved vigas from an older church and a statue of Saint Michael said to have chosen the town.
• Tigua Indian Cultural Center, Ysleta del Sur Pueblo — 20 mi
  The cultural center of Ysleta del Sur Pueblo, the Tigua nation that has lived in the Mission Valley of El Paso since 1682 and keeps its own history here.
• Ysleta Mission (Corpus Christi de la Ysleta del Sur) — 21 mi
  The Tigua mission church at Ysleta, rebuilt in 1908 around the walls, bell and Santo Entierro that came through fire, its interior painted with rain clouds and corn.

More markers nearby

• Tornillo — 3.2 mi
• San Elizario — 13 mi
• Salt War — 13 mi
• San Elizario — 13 mi