Conveniences Sorely Needed
Montana's Historic Highway Bridges

by Jon Axline

published by Montana Historical Society

• Old bridges do more than just span rivers. They provide an important historical connection between the hopes and dreams of the people who built them and those who continue to benefit from their use today. Montana’s historic highway bridges are symbols of the cooperative spirit that led to the economic and social stability of communities throughout the Big Sky Country for over a century. Other bridges, such as those built during the Great Depression, are physical reminders of significant periods in American history and tell stories about the breadth of Montana’s transportation past. Nonetheless all are representatives of the best in engineering practices and are testaments to the science of practical bridge design. From the aesthetically delightful Fort Benton Bridge to the more mundane Fred Robinson Bridge in the Missouri Breaks Country, Montana’s bridges signify the best in American bridge engineering. Today, Montana’s bridges are a visible, often overlooked, and fast disappearing part of the state’s historic landscape. Yet the story they tell is significant to understanding the dynamics of Montana's development in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and the optimism many had in its future.

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192 pages, 7.5 x 10, 80 b/w photos, index, appendix, glossary, 11 hardcovers per case, 34 softcovers per case, Paperback, Hard Cover

softcover
ISBN 10: 0972152261
ISBN 13: 9780972152266
$22.00

hardcover
ISBN 10:
ISBN 13: 9780972152259
$39.95

RELEASE DATE
12/1/05

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• Tells the stories of Montana's bridges and how they shaped the development of the Treasure State from the early horse-and-buggy days to the car culture of the post-World War II era.