File:Auto Race, Dunn's Bridge, 1915 - Kankakee River, Porter County, Indiana (4159515099).jpg

AUTO RACE DUNN'S BRIDGE

Date: 1915 Source Type: Postcard Publisher, Printer, Photographer: Unknown Postmark: Illegible postmark, hand dated September 25, 1915 Collection: Steven R. Shook Remark: Dunn's Bridge is believed to have been erected at some point in time between 1894 and 1904 by Isaac Dunn, a native of Maine residing in Jasper County, as a means of moving his farming equipment from one side of the Kankakee River to the other side.

It has long been rumored that the structural frame of Dunn's Bridge was constructed from iron trusses taken from the world's first Ferris wheel that operated at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, Illinois. This rumor is very likely untrue since the top of the bridge arch flattens out and, more importantly, the 1893 Ferris wheel from the World's Columbian Exposition was removed to St. Louis, Missouri, for use at the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition - being dynamited on May 11, 1906, and sold for scrap. Thus, the bridge's construction predated the dismantling of the Ferris wheel by many years.

It is quite probable that the bridge trusses did indeed originate from the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition, but more likely from one of the domed or barrel-arched structures that were dismantled after the exposition. One persistent theory is that the arches were obtained from the dismantled Administration Building from the World's Columbian Exposition.

This theory is supported by Kay Folsom Nichols, who writes about Dunn's Bridge in her book The Kankakee, published in 1965. She writes (pp. 173-174):

"Another was the building of Dunn's bridge. It was the first iron bridge built on the upper end of the River, and was fashioned from iron salvaged from the dome of the Administration building of the World's Columbian Exposition - THE Chicago World's Fair of 1893.

P. E. Lane, a Boston engineer, conceived the idea of salvaging iron from the domes and roofs of the great building which were of fabricated iron. He visioned this material going into bridges at low cost, and so it happened that during the next few years after the fair closed, the streams and rivers of Northern Indiana, particularly Lake and Porter counties, and that part of Illinois nearest Chicago, were furnished with bridge material whose first purpose had been to shelter exhibits from all over the world. There are many of these structures still in use today."

Information Source: Nichols, Kay Folsom. 1965 The Kankakee: Chronicle of an Indiana River and Its Fabled Marshes. Brooklyn, New York: Theodore Gaus' Sons, Inc. 209 p.