Hays Street Bridge
Hays St. over UPRR, N. Cherry, & Chestnut Sts., San Antonio, TXThe Hays Street Bridge, in San Antonio, Bexar County, was erected over the Galveston, Harrisburg, and San Antonio (GH&SA) Railroad and adjacent streets in east San Antonio in 1910 as the GH&SA was expanding its lines through San Antonio. One of the spans, a Murphy-Whipple wrought iron truss, was originally constructed in 1881 along the GH&SA Railroad over the Nueces River west of Uvalde, and moved to San Antonio in 1910 for the construction of the Hays Street Bridge. This span is one of only four known extant Whipple trusses in Texas and is the only known Texas bridge with a Phoenix column, a design commonly used by the Phoenix Bridge Company of Pennsylvania, the manufacturer of this structure. The Hay Street Bridge is significant under Criterion C, in the area of Engineering, at the state level of significance for its unique design. It is also significant under Criterion A, in the area of Transportation, for its association with the expansion of the railroads in San Antonio. The period of significance for the bridge dates from the construction of the Murphy-Whipple truss in c.1881 over the Nueces River to the end of the historic period, fifty years before the date of this nomination.
Local significance of the structure:Listed in National Register of Historic Places in 2012.
The National Register of Historic Places is the official list of the Nation’s historic places worthy of preservation. Authorized by the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, the National Park Service’s National Register of Historic Places is part of a national program to coordinate and support public and private efforts to identify, evaluate, and protect America’s historic and archeological resources.