Editor’s note: The Tribune-Herald is wrapping up 2023 with a series looking back at the Waco area’s top stories of the year, chosen by our editors and staff writers. The countdown continues with No. 8.
Waco called the cows home on a $13.4 million renovation project at the Waco Suspension Bridge in April with a packed weekend of opening festivities.
The city chose contractor Gibson and Associates to carry out the task under the guidance of Sparks Engineering, replacing the bridge’s deck and cables with a major facelift.
The Waco Suspension Bridge opened as a toll bridge in 1870, affording cattle drivers on the Chisolm Trail and others traveling for commerce an avenue to cross the unruly, flood-prone Brazos River.
“That bridge connected us in many ways to the world. … Without it I don’t know what they would have done,” Conventions and Tourism Director Dan Quandt said in March. “We were in the right place at the right time then, right place at the right time now.”
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Watch now: Saturday marked the official opening of the Waco Suspension Bridge, unveiling the $13.4 million project the city undertook in 2020 to give the 153-year-old structure new cables, a new deck and a much-needed facelift.
McLennan County bought the bridge from Waco Bridge Co. for $75,000 some 19 years after it opened, then sold it to the city for $1, making it free for all to cross. A large celebration ensued, similar to that of this year, with a parade led by Waco pioneer Kate Ross as the first person to cross the free bridge.
The bridge’s original cables were replaced in a major overhaul in 1914, and the recent project began in October 2020.
The project had some exciting moments in 2022. It briefly welcomed the Ironman triathlons for a weekend, closing again soon after, and rowers circled the area during the inaugural Waco Rowing Regatta. The appearance of an 80-ton crane and diving welders to remove the bridge’s temporary pile supports signaled the end was near.
This year began with the city and engineers reorienting themselves with unanticipated work related to some custom-made hardware and a crack in a concrete retaining wall caused by years of stormwater runoff.
Eight bronze cattle statues that graze Indian Spring Park, part of a public art installation called “Branding the Brazos,” took a hike to an undisclosed location in 2021 and returned to the Brazos River bank in March.
After all the work, some 2,000 linear feet of stretched and weakened cables was removed from the Suspension Bridge and replaced with 14 new German-made cables. The bridge’s anchorages were also removed, with workers drilling large-diameter piers to bedrock to strengthen the bridge’s tether to the ground.
Its cable saddles were also replaced with custom-made sliding saddle bearings. Engineer Patrick Sparks said the cast iron saddles that cables rest on inside the bridge’s towers are supposed to move slightly every day, adjusting to changes in temperature and load, but the former likely had not moved for 100 years.
The bridge got a clean paintjob and most of its decking, originally all wooden, is now a combination of durable ipe wood and concrete.
Wacoans welcomed their iconic landmark back in style with a weekend full of festivities in April. The bridge-centric activities began on Friday, April 21, with the return of the Brazos Nights concert series to Indian Spring Park and University Parks Drive. Mariachi Azteca and Jackie Venson warmed up the crowd with musical acts before a Waco-themed drone show lit up the sky with images depicting the Suspension Bridge, a cowboy spinning a lasso, the city’s “flying W” logo and several other shapes, with iconic Southern tunes playing in the background.
Watch now: Saturday marked the official opening of the Waco Suspension Bridge, unveiling the $12.4 million project the city undertook in 2020 to give the 153-year-old structure new cables, a new deck and a much-needed facelift. // Video footage: Kourtney David
Hundreds of people gathered in the same spot the next day to celebrate the bridge’s official reopening and unveiling with a ribbon cutting and cattle drive. City and county leaders showed out in droves for the occasion, thanking past leaders for their foresight to protect the bridge.
Following comments and a brief history lesson, spectators got their first taste of the renovated structure. They lined each side of the main deck to make way for a cattle drive of 20 longhorn cattle, complete with cowboys with a wagon in tow symbolic of the bridge’s original purpose as a connection across the river.
Carla Pendergraft, assistant director of tourism for the Waco Convention and Visitors Bureau, said the bridge and Indian Spring Park’s visitation dipped while the bridge was closed, but some 90,100 visitors have visited the site over the last 12 months. She expects visitation of the renovated site to pass pre-pandemic levels within the next few years.
