The main function of a bridge is simply to get people from point A to point B. That rudimentary task can get really surprising though, when people and art and creativity all come together. Like all architecture, bridges are yet another outlet for creativity, in particular, the iron bridges built here in the late 1800s.
The Commerce Street bridge crossing the San Antonio River was one of the first iron bridges erected here, and it was a sign of things to come. Lewis Fisher has written about a dozen books on San Antonio history and offers up this short timeline.
“Beginning in 1880, about a half dozen of them were built in San Antonio. And this was the most elaborate because Commerce Street was the major entrance into San Antonio from the Southern Pacific Railroad station, and everyone wanted to make the city look good,” Fisher said.
While iron bridges had been built for about a hundred years before the Commerce Street Bridge, San Antonio had a problem that kept the innovation from getting here.
“Cast iron bridges were very popular up in the northeast, but it was very difficult to get them here in San Antonio because we were so far from the coast and there was no railroad,” he said.
Cars can now make that trek in about three hours, but carrying an entire iron bridge could take weeks and perhaps dozens of oxcarts. That’s a very expensive proposition.
“Once we got the railroad, it became much easier to bring in heavy steel and iron,” Fisher said. “San Antonio needed to replace a lot of the wooden bridges that it had, and the big supplier turned out to be the East Berlin Iron Bridge Company in East Berlin, Connecticut. Several of those are still with us, still in use.”
These new bridges weren’t just wider. Fisher said their ornate designs were beautiful.
“This was the Victorian Era, after all. And there was a lot of frou-frou, a lot of decor, filigree, decor on homes and a lot of extra things that weren't really necessary, but it made everybody look good and feel good,” he said. “The Civil War had just had been over for a couple of decades, and people were beginning to recover and have a sense of fun and even extravagance,” he said.
Pictures of the bridge from the era reveal a heavy structure with arcing supports from bank-to-bank, with ornate columns at each corner ascending to a point about 14 feet above the bridge.
Conservationist and King William resident Maria Pfeiffer explained that “when you look at the pictures of the old Commerce Street Bridge in situ before it was moved in 1915, they were freestanding decorative kind of monuments on the corners.”
It was decided in 1914 that the two wide lanes of Commerce Street Bridge had to be replaced and widened to four lanes.
“The Berlin Iron Bridge Companyprovided some big bridge work for them at that point. And several of the Berlin iron bridges still are downtown today,” she said. “Others were moved from their downtown sites to other locations. The fourth Street Bridge went to Brackenridge Park. The old Saint Mary's Street bridge ended up in Brackenridge Park.”
But what happened to that Commerce Street bridge? It was moved to the King William neighborhood, where Johnson Street crossed the river. The now Johnson Street bridge had a new life at that shady site in Southtown, just a block north at the Guenther Street iron bridge.
But changes were at hand. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers needed to widen the river, just enough where the bridge wouldn’t quite be long enough. Maria Pfeiffer’s husband Fred was the CEO of the San Antonio River Authority at the time. “The river had to be widened. So it was removed intact and stored on vacant land adjacent, as was the Guenther Street Bridge,” he said.
The city had decided to have the Guenter Street Bridge dismantled for parts, and they planned to re-use the Commerce Street Bridge as it was.
“And that's where it went wrong, because the city contractor went and started dismantling the wrong bridge,” he said.
Both bridges were stored in a vacant lot — now the lot where San Antonio River Authority [SARA] headquarters is located — and contractors began tearing apart not the Guenther Bridge, but the Johnson Street bridge.
After the error was discovered, what to do now? Maria Pfieffer said SARA decided to change the bridge’s purpose, turning it into a walk bridge.
“The river Authority's landscape architects were able to design a good plan that incorporated pedestrian usage. There are so many people walking and, riding bicycles,” she said.
While the Johnson Street Bridge had been pretty well destroyed by being cut up, no one wanted to just toss it. Was there a way to still re-use it to build the pedestrian one? Lewis Fisher said a conditional yes.
“For Commerce Street, they designed four iron pillars that were much, much more elaborate, much fancier, and stood out a lot more than the other bridges that they did here in San Antonio,” Fisher said.
They searched for those four columns, but only found three, and had to re-create the missing one.
Oddly, Lewis Fisher says the Commerce Street Bridge also has a literary reference.
“O. Henry, who was the short story writer who was living in San Antonio in this era, did a short story, in which he titled "A Fog in San Antone," and he made a very romantic description of the bridge,” Fisher said. “And that's how it became known as the O. Henry Bridge.”
If you feel bad you didn’t know about the walk bridge, not to worry. Few have heard its backstory, including a walker we encountered there, by the name of Greg Whittenson.
“So that's that's a good story!” he said.
Joe Gonzalez walks this area every day and was surprised.
“I'm glad they were able to take the mistake and make it work,” Gonzalez said. “Is that right? I had no idea. That's interesting.”
Joe Gonzalez walks this area every day and was surprised.
“I had no idea. That's interesting,” he said.
No one we talked to knew even a bit of the bridge’s backstory even though Gonazlez has plenty of memories of the time he’s spent there.
“Lots of things have happened on this bridge for me. I've lost the cell phone. I've run into interesting people like yourself,” he said. “Lots of tourists. I use it every morning as I connect to the south part of the river.”
Lewis Fisher says that while the city’s iron bridges have become part of the fabric of the city.
“The iron bridges are one of the signature elements of the, the Riverwalk. The very lacy, designs on the sides of the bridge. They are just very picturesque,” he said.
