Shoal Creek Bridge - Florence, AL

The old Shoal Creek Bridge was opened in 1925 to cross Shoal Creek on the East Side of Florence, AL.

If you were to look at the stripes painted on the deck of the bridge, it wouldn't look like it's wide enough to carry two lanes of traffic, but back in the 20's, it did, although it was a tight squeeze. When that was no longer sufficient, a second two-lane bridge was opened (In the 1960's, I think) to parallel this one. These days, there's too much traffic along US43 & US72, so in 2007 a six lane bridge was built. When the newest bridge was completed, the second bridge was removed and this one was gated up but kept for posterity, I suppose. The Camelback through truss design has a total of five similar length spans with each reaching about 160 ft. for a total span of about 800 ft.