Yale Street Bridge over White Oak Bayou

The 1931 Yale Street Bridge spans White Oak Bayou in Houston, Harris County, Texas, and is one of a few remaining examples of bayou crossings constructed during the city's street improvement bond program of the 1930s. This concrete girder bridge with a neoclassical urn balustrade railing is significant as a good example of City Beautiful design on an engineered structure in Houston and the state of Texas and is nominated to the National Register under Criterion C in the area of engineering at the state level of significance. Still in use as a vehicular bridge, the property retains a high degree of integrity.

The City-Beautiful Movement and Houston Bayou Bridges

The Beaux-Arts axial landscape of the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago was a catalyst for the City Beautiful Movement, urban planning that included boulevards, classical-inspired architecture, and public monuments. During the City-Beautiful Movement in the first part of the 20th century, local governments across the United States began conscious efforts to improve the aesthetic features of their cities. This movement coincided with rapid growth in Texas, and several cities in the state began their own beautification programs. This often included consultation with professional city planners. In 1912, the City of Houston passed a $250,000 bond issue to acquire land and improve its park system. The Houston Park Commission then hired landscape architect and city planner Arthur C. Comey to develop a master plan for the city. Comey's plan, like many being produced at the time, featured a system of parkways and boulevards along the bayous to link the central city with growing suburbs. Parkways were planned along Buffalo and White Oak bayous, and Comey recommended that the necessary bridges be built of concrete, in the simplest form of construction.3 Several concrete bridges were constructed in the 1920s under Comey's plan, and many employed a type of construction that was increasing in popularity, the reinforced concrete girder. Early concrete girder bridges were constructed with steel wide-flange beams encased in concrete, but engineers soon learned that only parts of the beam were absorbing stress and that a series of smaller metal rods could achieve the same effect. Concrete girder bridge construction was used increasingly in the expansion of the Texas state highway system after the organization of the State Highway Department in 1917, reaching the height of its popularity in the 1930s. The 1924 Sabine Street Bridge over Buffalo Bayou, designed by engineer W.W. Washburn, included six spans of continuous reinforced concrete girders supported on concrete bents. Curved concrete fascia walls were used to give the appearance of an arch.

Like other cities, Houston's improvement plans were accomplished a little at a time using bond programs. Their parkway boulevard and street extension plan continued into the early 1930s. City bridge engineer James Gordon (J. G.) McKenzie continued to design bridges in a similar aesthetic during this time period. Three of his bridges, the Almeda Road and Telephone Road bridges over Bray's Bayou, and the Yale Street Bridge over White Oak Bayou were all built in 1931, using a simple concrete girder structure and an urn-style balustrade. In these bridges, McKenzie streamlined the form and ornamentation, reflecting more general trends in bridge design, and together they illustrate McKenzie's simplified version of City-Beautiful design.

Yale Street Bridge over White Oak Bayou

Based on a search of the Texas Historic Bridge Inventory, maintained by the Texas Department of Transportation, there are 183 continuous span concrete bridges with variable depth concrete girders in the state. Only seventeen are listed in the National Register of Historic Places or considered to be eligible for listing, because of their design (factors include length of main span, overall bridge length, rail type, and special design elements). This bridge's significance is particularly tied to its special railing design; it appears there are only a handful of extant historic bridges across the state that share this Neoclassical urn balustrade railing. A review of files at the Texas Historical Commission and the Texas Department of Transportation identified only thirteen other bridges with this type of railing in the state. These include three other Houston Bridges: the Almeda Road and Telephone Road bridges over Brays Bayou and the Sabine Street Bridge over Buffalo Bayou.
Because the railing design is characteristic of the City Beautiful movement, all of the bridges with this kind of railing were constructed between 1919 to 1931 and are located in urban areas: New Braunfels, San Antonio, Waco, and Dallas. With one exception, all of these bridges were built by local governments as part of a conscious movement to include aesthetics in the design of engineered structures. The Landa Street Bridge in New Braunfels was designed and built by the State Highway Department (Landa Street is Business 46) and the urn balustrade on the Landa Street Bridge is actually a standard highway-rail design (Type J). Although this may give the impression that urn balustrade railings might be common on Texas bridges, the Landa Street Bridge has the only documented Type J railing in the state. The bridges have little in common other than their railing and their concrete construction. The bridges in Houston and Waco are composed of concrete girders, the Landa Street Bridge is constructed of steel I-beams encased in concrete, and the rest are concrete spandrel arch bridges.

Like the Almeda Road and Telephone Road Bridges over Brays Bayou, this bridge was designed by bridge engineer J.G. McKenzie and constructed for the City of Houston in 1931 by J.P. Miller & Company. One of McKenzie's simplified City Beautiful bridges, it features a variable depth reinforced concrete girder, cantilevered sidewalks with urn balustrades, and two-column concrete battered bents with square capitals. The bridge was paid for by a 1929 bond and was constructed for approximately $43,580.00.

All three of these bridges are significant at the statewide level for their special design, including the urn balustrade railing, and are three of the few remaining intact examples of a bayou crossing constructed during the early 1930s as part of Houston's street improvement program. Both the Almeda Road and Telephone Road bridges are already listed in the National Register of Historic Places. The Yale Street Bridge has retained a majority of its integrity of design, materials, workmanship, and location and sufficient integrity of setting, feeling, and association, to meet National Register eligibility at the state level of significance.