One way to describe the difference between an overpass and a viaduct is to cite what can be seen about three blocks apart on Albert Lea’s West Main Street.

Saturday, February 23, 2002

One way to describe the difference between an overpass and a viaduct is to cite what can be seen about three blocks apart on Albert Lea’s West Main Street.

The viaduct is defined in one dictionary as &uot;a bridge made up of several short spans for carrying a road.&uot; That certainly describes the 700-foot-long bridge between Euclid and First Avenues which goes over the railroad tracks and two streets.

Further to the west on Main Street and closer to the Skyline Shopping Center is a single-span bridge over another set of railroad tracks. This qualifies as an example of an overpass.

Prior to 1934, Main Street on the city’s west side was an interrupted street. Part of the street ended near the Minneapolis and St. Louis Railroad (M. & St. L.) Depot. and the tracks. Beyond this point, and on the other side of the tracks, the street resumed again as West Main Street. (At the present time William and College Streets are still disjointed because of the railroad tracks in this neighborhood.) In this era the only east-west crossings over the M. & St. L. tracks were Front, Clark, Water and Fountain Streets.

In the early 1920s, the major east-west highway across the state from La Crosse, Wis., to Sioux Falls, S.D., was known as the National Parks Pike and later with the strange name of Southern Minnesota Air Line. This roadway, then called an auto trail, was mighty dusty when dry, muddy and usually impassable when wet, and really miserable for traffic during the winter months.

In 1925, the decision was made to designate this roadway as U.S. Highway 16. Then, in the early 1930s, the state highway department started to pave the entire roadway and to do some rerouting in several places.

One of those reroutings was on West Main Street here in Albert Lea. And as part of this improvement project, overpasses and underpasses were planned to avoid railroad crossings.

For many years between La Crosse and Sioux Falls, one could reportedly travel on U.S. 16 across the southern part of the state and go over or under all the railroad tracks. (An underpass for this highway still exists on Oakland Avenue in Austin. An overpass between Hayward and Petran was removed years ago and after the completion of nearby I-90.)

A 1931 Sandborn map at the Freeborn County Historical Society Museum Library shows that 14 homes, plus detached garages, small barns and other buildings had to be either moved or demolished to provide space for the new viaduct.

This viaduct for the city’s new highway routing in 1934 had to be a bridge over both Adams and Ermina Avenues. Then came the challenge for the highway engineers to erect a viaduct over 11 separate sets of railroad tracks in the M. & St. L.’s Albert Lea rail yards. (Note: There are still 11 separate sets or pairs of tracks under the present viaduct.)

The June 18, 1934, issue of the Tribune said the contract for the viaduct project was awarded to the A. Guthrie firm of St. Paul for $141,826. About 4,500 barrels of cement, 313,000 pounds of reinforced steel, 700,000 pounds of structural steel were used for the viaduct, and more than 400 long piles were used in the footings.

Two high truss steel structures are above the deck which in turn is 22 feet above the tracks.

Over 150 men worked on this major highway project which was scheduled to be completed in December 1934.

For just over 67 years the West Main Street viaduct has served as a two -lane route for U.S. Highways 16 and 69, and State Highway 13. (U.S. 16 is now County Road 46.)

A pedestrian walkway was provided on the north side of the viaduct. An added part of this feature is a steel mesh stairway leading down to Ermina Avenue. There are 43 steps and two landings. This stairway was once used by students going to and from the city’s Central School and people going to from the nearby depot or grain elevator.

At the east end of viaduct are two sets of concrete steps intended to serve as connections between the walkway and the nearby sidewalks.

One of the oddest aspects of this viaduct structure which will soon be just a memory is the Adams Avenue underpass. On one side the overhead clearance is marked as 10 feet. For the other lane of the avenue (closer to the tracks) the marked clearance is 10 feet, six inches. A few truck drivers through the years have had rather unhappy encounters by being on the wrong side of Adams with a truck which was taller than expected.

Somehow overlooked in the project to replace this 67-year-old viaduct are a flock of pigeons. These birds made the underside of the bridge over the railroad tracks their roosting and nesting sites and relied on the nearby elevator as their prime food source.