DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, and here's how Duane tells it too. Way back before there was much of anything spanning the Trinity River at this particular bend, you had two choices for getting from downtown Fort Worth to the northern sections of the city — you could wait on a ferry, or you could take your chances at a low-water crossing and hope the river was feeling cooperative that day. That was it.
That was your whole menu. Now, sometime in the 1890s, somebody decided to do something about that, and a two-lane suspension bridge went up near this very site. And for a while, maybe it felt like progress.
But Fort Worth had plans. Fort Worth was growin', and that little two-lane span just could not keep up with the population pressing against it. So the city turned to a firm out of St.
Louis — Brenneke and Fay — and in 1914, they delivered something the nation had never seen before. This bridge, right here, became the first reinforced concrete arch in the entire country to use self-supporting, reinforcing steel. Let that sit with you a moment.
The whole United States of America, and this crossing over the Trinity River in Fort Worth, Texas, was the first. The whole span was named in honor of B.B. Paddock — former state legislator, former mayor of the city — a man whose name now rests on a genuine piece of American engineering history.
Not bad for a river that used to make you wait on a ferry.
What the marker says
Low-water crossing and ferries originally provided the only access across the Trinity River at this location, connecting the downtown area of Fort Worth with northern sections of the city. A two-lane suspension bridge, constructed near this site in the 1890s, proved inadequate for the growing population. This span, designed by the St. Louis firm of Brenneke and Fay, was built in 1914. It was the first reinforced concrete arch in the nation to use self-supporting, reinforcing steel. The bridge is named in honor of B.B. Paddock, former state legislator and mayor of the city.