FILLMORE : City Seeks to Sell 3 Trusses From Historic Bridge

For sale: one used, 66-year-old green bridge. Contact Fillmore Mayor Pro Tem Roger Campbell.

Because a new, wider and safer Bardsdale Bridge opened last month, the historic green bridge that spans the Santa Clara River on California 23 had to be removed. Crews this week began dismantling the one-third-of-a-mile-long structure and hauling away the concrete rubble and twisted re-bar.

But the city paid about $40,000 to keep eight, 135-foot-long, 30-foot-high trusses that weigh 66 tons each. Workers are using two bulldozers--one to pull and one to push--to drag the trusses to an empty lot at the foot of Central Avenue, about a mile away.

Campbell said the city intends to use five of the trusses: two to span Pole Creek at Santa Clara Avenue, two across Pole Creek at River Street and one along a bicycle path planned for the foot of Central Avenue.

That leaves three trusses that Fillmore hopes to sell.

“We really haven’t talked a lot about price,” Campbell said.

Campbell initially opposed keeping the trusses when the state offered to sell them to Fillmore two years ago. The asking price: $1.

“I saved the city some money,” Campbell said jokingly of his initial hesitancy to take the trusses.

At the time, Campbell said it wasn’t worth the city’s time and money to preserve the old bridge purely for its historic value. But in those two years, the three proposed uses for the trusses arose.

The old Bardsdale Bridge was deemed unsafe because it was too narrow and had structural defects. The two-lane bridge was 20 feet wide with no shoulders.

A 1990 state Department of Transportation report showed that 16 accidents occurred on the bridge between 1986 and 1989.

“It made you nervous when you drove across,” said longtime Fillmore resident Lucian Meyers, 70.

Despite the bridge’s aesthetic appeal, Meyers said, he prefers the newer concrete one.

“You can’t stand in the way of progress,” he said.

The new $6-million bridge is 40 feet wide with eight-foot emergency lanes on each side.

Although the concrete span lacks the charm of its metal predecessor, the two do share one distinguishing characteristic: graffiti.

Construction superintendent Denis Stellenberg said crews will sandblast the marks from the bridge before they leave in February. But he expects vandals to strike when the crews are long gone.

“They’re bored kids,” he said.