Waco Suspension Bridge

Waco sat where cattle drivers on the Chisholm Trail found shallow banks on the Brazos, which was otherwise hard to cross. The legislature chartered the Waco Bridge Company on November 1, 1866, with exclusive bridge rights within five miles. Thomas M. Griffith, a New York civil engineer, arrived in 1868 to plan it. Waco History says the cables came from the Roebling company of Trenton, New Jersey, and that local labor assembled the bridge after the parts arrived by oxcart.

The Handbook of Texas gives the opening as January 7, 1870, with a span of 475 feet. A first estimate of $40,000 grew with inflation and an unstable riverbed, and final costs are commonly given as $135,000 or $141,000. Tolls brought in about $25,000 a year and were unpopular. After two years of court fights over the charter, McLennan County bought the bridge for $75,000 in 1889 and sold it to the city for a dollar, on condition that the city maintain it. It reopened free on September 1, 1889.

In 1914 the bridge got a new cable system, steel roadway reinforcement and rebuilt, stuccoed towers. It was listed on the National Register in 1970, and vehicle traffic ended in 1971, after other Brazos bridges had opened. It is now reserved for pedestrians and special events, with a park beside it.