Medio Creek Bridge
Normanna, Bee County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Built in 1897 by the New Jersey Iron and Steel Company, this bridge has served as one of the major crossings on the road from Beeville to San Antonio. Funding for the bridge was acquired from the sale of bonds from Bee County's permanent school fund. Construction costs totaled $3,990. The steel Pratt through truss bridge, with a wooden deck and approaches, rests on riveted-steel caissons, or piers. It has survived numerous floods. The top of the bridge was restored in 1923, and a new floor was constructed in 1947. The bridge remained in service for vehicular traffic until 1987. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1987
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Built in 1897 by the New Jersey Iron and Steel Company, this steel Pratt through-truss bridge carried the main road from Beeville to San Antonio across Medio Creek. Bee County funded its $3,990 cost by selling bonds from the permanent school fund, and the span rested on riveted-steel caissons that let it survive flood after flood. Repaired in 1923 and re-decked in 1947, it stayed in service for vehicles until 1987.
Why it matters
A modest county bridge like this one shows how turn-of-the-century steel engineering knit rural Texas together, keeping farm-to-market roads open for nearly a century.
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Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Normanna
Normanna, TX
The community that became Normanna began around 1850 near the junction of two creeks, then picked up and moved when the railroad arrived in 1886, renaming itself Walton for a local sheriff. When Norwegian settlers poured in during the 1890s, the name shifted again to Normanna—"Home of the Norseman"—honoring the old Norse heroes. The town prospered for decades before fires and the coming of the automobile drained it away.
Early Trails in Bee County
Beeville, TX
The roads of Bee County were centuries in the making: Native, wild-cattle, and mustang trails became highways for Spanish expeditions pressing north from Mexico, and later guided pioneers who founded towns at their crossings — Beeville itself sits where two old roads met. During the Civil War the vital "cotton road," called the lifeline of the Confederacy, crossed the county, and afterward great cattle trails funneled Longhorns north toward the Chisholm and Dodge City routes.
Captain A.C. Jones
Beeville, TX
Born in Nacogdoches County to early Texas settlers, A. C. Jones became a cattleman and county sheriff before serving four years in Colonel John S. "Rip" Ford's Confederate cavalry, fighting at Palmito Hill—the last land battle of the Civil War, waged weeks after Lee's surrender. In peacetime he helped raise the capital to bring railroads to Beeville and led the town's banking and oil-mill enterprises.
Bee County
Pettus, TX
Carved largely from San Patricio County in 1857 and organized in 1858, Bee County took its name from Barnard E. Bee, who served the Republic of Texas as secretary of war, secretary of state, and minister to the United States. A cattle region since Spanish colonial times, it became an important beef producer after 1865 and gained its first railroad, the San Antonio and Aransas Pass, in 1886. Oil was discovered here in 1929, and the county seat has been at Beeville since 1860.