Ten years after public outcry saved it from demolition, work to permanently preserve historic Chicken Creek Bridge should begin soon.
The county has been awarded $134,000 in federal grant money to preserve the 1913 bridge, build a bypass so it will no longer have to support traffic and create a small park around the bridge.
Michael Kelly, a surveyor with Douglas County public works, said the department hopes to find someone to do design work in the next few months.
The stone arch of Chicken Creek Bridge is on East 850 Road just east of Lone Star Lake.
The bridge is not impressively old or incredibly long. Nor does it support a well-traveled road.
It was a simple stone bridge built for farmers and anyone else wanting to get across Chicken Creek.
That is why it is worth saving, said Steven Jansen, director of the Watkins Community Museum of History.
"We need to preserve, where appropriate and where funding exists, examples of what would have been perceived as commonplace at one time," Jansen said. "We need to know what was not unusual. We need to know what was the norm."
The bridge almost wasn't preserved.
It was scheduled to be demolished for a new bridge during the summer 1989.
But a group of Douglas County residents lobbied for its preservation and got it recognized on the National Register of Historic Places.
That effort led to the county's bypass plan, which should receive federal grant money through the Kansas Department of Transportation once the plans are complete.
-- Kendrick Blackwood's phone message number is 832-7221. His e-mail address is kblackwood@ljworld.com.
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