A piece of Washtenaw County history is preparing for a new chapter.
After more than a century spanning the Huron River on Bell Road, the 1891 Bell Road Bridge has been carefully dismantled and placed into storage by the Washtenaw County Road Commission. The historic iron truss bridge is expected to be reconstructed as part of the Border-to-Border (B2B) Trail’s Dexter Connection project, where it will carry pedestrians and cyclists across Mill Creek into Mill Creek Park.
The relocation will preserve one of Michigan’s rarest surviving historic highway bridges while giving it a new purpose for generations of trail users.
Originally built in 1891 by the Wrought Iron Bridge Company of Canton, Ohio, the bridge served Bell Road at the Huron River in Dexter Township for well over a century. It is a single-span Pratt through truss bridge measuring 103 feet, 6 inches long and 13 feet, 5 inches wide, resting on fieldstone abutments. At the time of its National Register nomination, the bridge had already been closed to vehicle traffic because of the deteriorating condition of its stone supports.
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