The Portersville Bridge was a very interesting project for CLR

The bridge was acquired by the Indiana DNR and it was to be taken down from across the White River at the small town of Portersville, Indiana, which is not far from Jasper, Indiana.

The two, 200 foot long spans had to have the floor removed from the spans, and then remove as much of the steel stringer beams as possible to lighten the load.  The spans would be picked up with two large cranes and set down on a prep area, with one end of the first span sitting on a specially made dollie so that the one end could roll across the prep area while the crane swings and booms across the river until another crane could pick that end, then the first crane had to pick the dollie end up and with the two cranes picking up both ends again, it was passed across the river where it was set on two more dollies and pulled up the river bank with two semi tractors being pulled by one bulldozer.  The two semi tractors were pulled by the bulldozer so that both of the tractors would pull at the same rate, so that the bridge span would have minimal strain put on it.

Once the first span was across the river and set off of the other dollies, the second span was set down and across in the same manner. 

When the two spans were set up in the final staging area, thew were then taken apart piece by piece, down to the smallest parts, they were then loaded onto semi trailers and trucked down to Charlestown, Indiana and stored inside a building on the park grounds, to be re assembled at a later date, and installed over a creek within the park boundaries.

Portersville Indiana bridge