Workers construct the second Kansas River Bridge at Lawrence in 1916. The original bridge at Lawrence, finished in 1863, can be seen to the left.

The second Kansas River Bridge at Lawrence was built 100 years ago this year and was considered one of the “most beautiful” and “most serviceable” bridges in Kansas, according to an article in the Lawrence Daily Journal-World at the time.

It replaced the first bridge built across the Kansas River in Lawrence and would later be abandoned for the pair of bridges used now, which were built in the late 1970s and finished in 1980.

Workers construct the second Kansas River Bridge at Lawrence in 1916. The original bridge at Lawrence, finished in 1863, can be seen to the left.

Lawrence resident Ken Wright recently came upon these photos of the second bridge’s construction in 1916. They were taken from North Lawrence, looking south.

According to a chronology of the construction printed on the front page of the Daily Journal-World on Jan. 5, 1917 — the day after the bridge was dedicated — the Kansas Legislature passed a law in 1913 giving Douglas County the authority to ask voters to increase a tax levy to pay for the bridge.

Douglas County voted 2,404 to 1,685 in favor of the proposal.

The Missouri Valley Bridge and Iron Company was awarded a contract for $199,910 and started preliminary work on the bridge in November 1915.

An excerpt from an engineering text at Watkins Museum of History explains in detail how the bridge was built. It was composed of reinforced concrete, and each arch was poured with concrete continuously for 30 hours. Materials were taken to their spot on the bridge via cables hung from two 100-foot towers on either side of the river.

When complete, the arch bridge was 1,026 feet long with a brick surface and streetcar tracks running down the middle.

The old, wooden Howe truss bridge is visible in some of Wright’s photos. That bridge was the original in Lawrence. It was partially completed during Quantrill’s Raid on Lawrence in August 1863. According to a newspaper article that ran 100 years after the bridge’s opening, a subcontractor and seven laborers on the bridge were killed during Quantrill’s Raid.

“However, the contractors and stockholders rallied sufficient support to complete the structure,” the article states. The total cost of the project was $47,000.

The original bridge was deemed unsafe in 1913, prompting Douglas County to start the process of building the concrete arch bridge.

The 1917 bridge was demolished, with some difficulty, during construction of the bridges that exist now.