After about 75 years, the Dan Hartter bridge near Eureka is changing location.

EUREKA - It's not uncommon to see cars, trucks, vans, semis and even the occasional pre-fabricated house traveling down the highway.

But a bridge? Grab the cameras, that should be interesting.

For nearly 75 years, the Dan Hartter bridge - located off Illinois Route 117 about a mile south of Eureka - served as a narrow thoroughfare for cars, trucks and farm tractors crossing a portion of Walnut Creek.

"It's a narrow one-lane bridge that's served its purpose. Farmers with their large equipment can't get across it anymore," said Melvin Hartter, Olio Township Road Commissioner and grandson of the late Dan Hartter.

Next week, the 100-foot bridge will journey down the street on a house-moving trailer to its new home at Lake Eureka's lower park. It will cross Walnut Creek and connect the park to The Nature Conservancy's planned one-acre wetland, said Steve Shaw, Eureka's park supervisor.

"Moving a big bridge isn't something that happens every day," said Richard Hartter, son of the late Dan Hartter.

Several years ago, road officials determined the time had come for the narrow, one-lane through-truss bridge to retire.

But Woodford County officials stumbled upon roadblocks when they were informed by the state's Historic Preservation Agency that the aging bridge actually was a treasure.
Moving, a 15-foot-wide; 100-foot-long bridge is no easy task. So Woodford County officials started tapping the Yellow Pages,  and found a Farmington-based company to take on the colossal task, said County Highway engineer Dennis Bachman.

A temporary bridge first had to be built next to the Dan Hartter for work crews to use. Then the Dan Hartter bridge was carefully cut from its concrete holdings and moved onto a trailer by two cranes, Bachman said.

"This is a big undertaking that takes a lot of time," Bachman said.

There are about two dozen types of bridge in Illinois out of about 10,000 bridges. The Dan Hartter is one of only 30 through truss bridges left in the state, according to deputy state historic preservation officer Ted Hild.

The bridge is made of concrete and steel. The top of one side of the bridge is connected to the top of the other side of the bridge by the steel structure.

"It's in good condition. It may have not been sufficient for modem traffic, but its structural integrity is of high quality," Hild said.

We can't save them all, we don't want to save them all, so we pick a representative sampling. This was one of then," he added.

Richard Hartter remembers the bridge being built when he was a young child., It was located next to his farm house and was built to replace a steel bridge with wooden planks that had been washed out form a recent Walnut Creek flooding.

"My mothers. and sisters fed some of the men who worked on the edge and they slept sometimes in our yard. So they named the bridge after my father because it was his farm, "Richard Hartter said.

A newer two lane concrete bridge will be constructed by the end of the summer to replace the Dan Hartter, highway officials said.

"We replace bridges all the tine, but this is the first historic bridge we've  had to replace and keep," Bachman said.

from a story by Karen McDonald of the Peoria Journal Star, May 5, 2001.