Walter Sharp, Bridge Builder...

One of the foremost promoters and prolific builders of stone arch bridges in Cowley, Butler and Greenwood counties was Walter Sharp.  By 1904, his company had built more than 100 stone bridges in the area.  Sharp insisted that though stone bridges were slightly more expensive to build than the wooden planked steel truss bridges of the day, his bridges were stronger and required less maintenance.  The flash floods of June 1904 would prove to be his vindication.  After the flooding in Cowley county that year, total damage to all stone bridges was less than $100, while repairs to steel bridges cost over $4,000.  Though his claims of stone bridges being "maintenance-free" were somewhat of an exaggeration, history has certainly proved the old stone bridges to be quite durable.

Word of Sharp's bridges spread as far as New Mexico and Colorado.  There, too, flash floods had heavily damaged steel bridges, and Sharp was hired to build several large stonebridges in each of those states.  I've been unable to find out if any of these are still standing, but it would be interesting to know if they were.  At least two were built in the Raton, NM area, and two were constructed near Santa Fe.  Sharp also operated in Colorado for a time during this time period.   Besides building stone bridges, he also built several downtown business buildings in El Dorado and in Winfield, and some of these are still in use.

Sharp also experimented with cement, which was coming into more common use as a building material.  He built several arch bridges totally of concrete, which he stated were as strong or stronger than those made of stone.  It is interesting to note that even today, there is said to no real way to determine a load limit for a stone arch bridge.  Sharp used trial and error along with intuition to design his arch bridges.  My own opinion is that you could drive a tank across any of these old stone bridges as long as the arch and abutments are in good shape. 

In several instances, he combined both stone and concrete in the same bridge.  At least one example of this is the Harrison Bridge in Greenwood county (photo, right).  In that bridge, the arches are concrete, but the walls are made of native stone.  To look at his bridges, one comes to believe that Sharp was an artist who instead of using canvas, created his masterpieces of stone.

At least one of the remaining stone bridges in Cowley County bears the signature of Walter Sharp, as if the artist was signing his work.  In the photo (left), you can just make out "W. Sharp" next to the much larger "1917" on the concrete banister.  This bridge is located north of Cambridge on Grouse Creek.

In a 1905 newspaper article, Sharp published his arguments in favor of building stone arch bridges.  In the article he asserted that land in Illinois, Indiana, and Iowa was more valuable due to a good system of roads and bridges which were used to move farm products to market.  He also commented, "The arch bridge for beauty has never been equaled.  An arch bridge adds beauty to any landscape."  Sadly, some of us seem to have lost the appreciation for the beauty of which Sharp wrote.  Concrete was replacing stone as the preferred material in bridge construction towards the end of Sharp's lifetime.  Sharp died in 1929, and is buried in the Winfield Cemetery.

There is a small mystery here, too.  Sharp had a trademark emblem of sorts chiseled into his bridges which had date stones.  It consisted of several lines in the shape of a house.  For whatever reason, someone has gone to the effort to remove the emblem from the datestone of the Timber Creek bridge (photo, left) in Cowley county recently, while leaving everything else unharmed.  At least one other bridge in Cowley county has been vandalized in this same way.   Someone in Greenwood county, I think at the museum, mentioned something about some vandalism to a date stone on one of their bridges.  It strikes me as bizarre someone would go to the effort to remove the "gingerbread house" and leave everything else alone.  So, like I say, it's a small mystery.

The Bridges in Autumn...

Anatomy of a Bridge...

A Bridge is Lost...

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