Hell's Bend bridge nears completion after months of construction and years of negotiations
- Roger Sims, Journal Staff
- May 31
- 2 min read
Story and photos by Roger Sims, rsims@linncountyjournal.com
LA CYGNE – While there are a few things left to be done, including hauling away scrapped steel girders from the former Hell's Bend bridge, located on east 2300 Road. The $2 million project to replace the bridge over the BNSF railroad tracks north of La Cygne is almost finished.
The completion of the bridge puts to an end a saga of a project that had been under consideration from 2020 to 2024 when commissioners voted 2-to-1 not to do the project despite a substantial grant from the Kansas Department of Transportation.
It saw a farmer with crops harvested on the west side of the bridge using a series of grain augers to move grain across the old bridge built in 1977 after concerns arose that bridge would not be able to support large farm equipment safely.
In place of the old bridge, a critical fracture bridge that state officials felt would collapse if any of its structural members collapsed, is a new bridge with a concrete deck over substantially larger steel girders. The span of the bridge is shorter than the old bridge with abutments supported by retaining walls instead of steel piers
The commission at its meeting on June 17, 2024, voted to accept a final offer from the state to underwrite all of the bridge's construction cost except $180,00. That was a deal worked out by state Sen. Caryn Tyson after two commissioners, Jim Johnson and former commissioner Danny McCullough refused to approve spending any county money on the project.
The bridge had been a point of contention for the commissioners because Johnson and McCullough, did not think that the bridge was a priority because they felt that other bridges in the county were in worse condition.
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