A piece of Liberty’s skyline that has spanned the Trinity River for nearly a century appears destined to disappear.
The historic US 90 truss bridge, built in 1930 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places, is slated for demolition, with the Texas Department of Transportation currently anticipating the project will go to bid in summer 2027.
For Linda Jamison, chair of the Liberty County Historical Commission, the news is particularly painful after spending roughly 15 years searching for a way to save the bridge.
“I am heartbroken. I have been fighting this battle for 15 years,” Jamison said.
TxDOT documents provided to Bluebonnet News outline three options for the bridge, and all three call for its demolition. The first is simply to demolish it. The second would demolish the bridge and install a plaque near the Liberty city limit sign. The third would preserve one of the bridge’s spans as a memorial, but a non-TxDOT entity would have to pay an estimated $1 million to remove, paint and relocate the span, then agree to maintain it.
TxDOT estimates demolition of the bridge will cost approximately $6 million and take about six months. The current letting date is summer 2027.
The bridge was constructed in 1930 and includes three truss spans, one steel I-beam span and 29 concrete girder spans. Its distinctive trusses are 150-foot Parker through trusses. The bridge was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1996.
Jamison said efforts to preserve the bridge stretch back decades.
When the newer US 90 bridge was completed in the 1990s, she said, a resolution was signed indicating the old bridge would be rehabilitated and preserved for the community. That rehabilitation never happened.
“In so many words, TxDOT said that paper was not an agreement or MOU. It was not worth the paper it was written on,” Jamison said.
Over the years, ideas for saving the bridge have included rehabilitating it as a pedestrian walkway with benches and lighting, potentially turning the historic structure into a public gathering place overlooking the Trinity River.
The obstacle, Jamison said, is not simply finding a new purpose for the bridge. Its condition has deteriorated considerably.
“The bottom line is, the bridge is failing. The structure is failing,” she said.
Jamison said flooding on the Trinity River has taken a toll on the bridge’s underwater supports, eroding the concrete structures over time. Several years ago, she said, inspections raised serious concerns about their condition.
The bridge has remained closed to the public, making the once-discussed idea of converting it into a pedestrian bridge increasingly unrealistic without a major rehabilitation project.
Even more than a decade ago, Jamison said, the estimated rehabilitation cost was approximately $11 million. Today, TxDOT estimates preserving the bridge would require an investment of approximately $20 million to $30 million.
In a statement to Bluebonnet News, TxDOT Public Information Officer Tanya Avila said the agency has been discussing the bridge with the City of Liberty, Liberty County, the Liberty County Historical Commission and the office of state Rep. Janis Holt.
“TxDOT presented three options to this group. Unfortunately, preserving the bridge would require an estimated investment of approximately $20 million to $30 million and was not presented as an option because it’s not a feasible solution,” Avila said.
For preservation to have worked, Jamison said, another governmental entity would essentially have needed to assume responsibility for the bridge, including the cost of rehabilitating it and maintaining it in the future.
She said it became clear that local governmental entities did not have the financial resources to take on such an obligation.
TxDOT funding presented another complication.
Jamison said TxDOT officials have explained during recent discussions that money spent to preserve the old bridge would come at the expense of funding available for other highway and bridge projects in Liberty County.
“They have bigger fish to fry. Roads and bridges that are still viable take a lot of money,” Jamison said.
She said TxDOT has made it clear that money committed to the old bridge within the district would be deducted from funding otherwise available for Liberty County road projects.
“I’ve known for a while that the county didn’t want to take it on,” Jamison said.
That leaves Liberty with three difficult choices, none of which would preserve the bridge in its entirety.
Jamison, however, is not ready to give up on saving at least a piece of it.
The most substantial preservation option would retain one of the three 150-foot truss spans as a memorial. Under TxDOT’s proposal, a private or other non-TxDOT entity would be responsible for removing, painting and relocating the span at an estimated cost of $1 million. That entity also would have to assume responsibility for its future maintenance.
Jamison said she remains hopeful that a way can be found to preserve one of the trusses and relocate it somewhere in the community.
If that cannot happen, the bridge could disappear entirely, with only a plaque left to mark the place of a structure that has been part of Liberty’s landscape for generations.
The loss would carry another painful consequence for local preservationists. The bridge was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1996, a designation Jamison said would be sad to lose.
There is also the matter of how close the bridge came to reaching a milestone few structures survive to see.
Built in 1930, the bridge would have celebrated its 100th anniversary in just four years.
Avila said TxDOT recognizes what the bridge means to the community.
“TxDOT understands the significance of this historic structure and the important role it plays in the community. While we understand the community’s strong desire to preserve the bridge, our responsibility is to make the difficult decisions necessary to protect the traveling public,” she said.
TxDOT said it will announce the decision regarding the bridge’s future once it is finalized.
After 15 years of trying to save the bridge, Jamison knows preserving it in its entirety is no longer considered financially feasible. But as long as there remains a possibility of saving one of its three distinctive trusses, she is not ready to consider the preservation effort over.
For a bridge that came within four years of its centennial, one surviving truss could ensure that at least a piece of the landmark remains in Liberty for generations to come.
For Bluebonnet News readers, please share photos you have taken of the bridge over the years on the Bluebonnet News Facebook page. Historians would like to collect these photos for preservation.