Pulaski Road Bridge receives historic status

Chicago's bridges are internationally famous and celebrated locally – except perhaps by those waiting in traffic when a drawbridge is raised.

“They are part of the fabric of our city,” said Margaret Frisbee, executive director of Friends of the Chicago River, which operates the McCormick Bridgehouse & Chicago River Museum downtown. “Chicago is here because the river is here, and the bridges tell the story of our history and how it evolved.”

These include the man-made waterways that created connections between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River system, such as the Cal-Sag Canal. The region's canals and associated infrastructure “continue the story of Chicago using the river system to keep itself on the map and creating this network of waterways for trade.”

That network, and the overlay of rails and roads tied into the city's grid, created an environment where more bridge patents were filed than anywhere else in the country, Frisbee said. Chicago has more drawbridges than any other city in the world except Amsterdam, says Patrick McBriarty, a historian and author of the definitive guidebook “Chicago River Bridges.”

The tranquil lakefront and playful Riverwalk give no hint of Chicago's port history. In the 1880s, the number of ships arriving and departing here exceeded all other ports on the East and West Coasts, says McBriarty.

“Bridges were opening or swinging up to four or five times an hour,” he said. People on the street were increasingly late. Although Chicago became “a melting pot for new bridge construction,” McBriarty said, the city's famous movable bridges were probably not highly appreciated.

When the Cal-Sag Canal opened a few decades later, drawbridges were largely not included in the plans—with the exception of the 95th Street Bridge over the Calumet River, which was used as a jump in the movie “The Blues Brothers.”

First, advances in equipping tugs with hydraulic lifting devices made it possible for wheelhouses to be lowered so that they could fit under fixed bridges.

But designers of the Crawford Avenue Bridge over the Cal-Sag weren't sure. The Crawford Bridge is one of the oldest bridges along the canal and was designed to accommodate lift towers should boat traffic require more clearance in the future, according to the listing on historicbridges.org.

That never happened, and in the nearly 100 years since it was built in 1932, the bridge has quietly served its purpose, connecting Robbins and Alsip across Pulaski Road.

It's easy to miss a small metal plaque attached to the bridge's steel beams, the same color as the rest of the structure that carries thousands of motorists across its four lanes every day. It states that the bridge was built by McClintic-Marshall, an engineering firm involved in historic bridges across the country, including the erection of the towers and floor structure of the George Washington Bridge in New York City.

By the time the Crawford Avenue Bridge was built, the company had already been bought out by Bethlehem Steel, but retained its own corporate identity. That changed, however, when the company was involved in another, even more famous bridge later that decade. The contract to build the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco would spell the end of the company.

According to Bethlehem Steel Corporation records kept at the Hagley Museum and Library in Delaware and posted online, “Upon seeing the name McClintic-Marshall instead of Bethlehem on the Golden Gate Bridge, Eugene Grace, chairman of Bethlehem Steel, immediately ordered the merger of the McClintic-Marshall Corporation with the Bethlehem Steel Company.”

Although Bethlehem's logo is visible on the plaque on the Cal-Sag Bridge, it is overshadowed by the McClintic-Marshall name. Apparently Eugene Grace didn't care much about Bethlehem's fame in Robbins.

The bridge continues to be called the Crawford Avenue Bridge, although the name of the road was officially changed, at least in Chicago, to Pulaski Road just two years after its construction. Crawford was named by Peter Crawford, an early politician who helped organize Cicero Township, which gave its name to Cicero Avenue, the next major street to the west.

Even today, the Crawford/Pulaski debate is reignited from time to time, but Cook County officials have settled on the newer name as they consider a major project along the road that encloses the bridge section.

The Pulaski Road Corridor Study, a long-term process that began in 2020 and is expected to be completed in 2025, includes a section of Pulaski from 159th to 127th Streets in Markham, Midlothian, Robbins, Crestwood and Alsip.

Jennifer “Sis” Killen, director of the Cook County Transportation Authority, said this is a way to “address existing roadway deficiencies while adding pedestrian amenities.”

“We are imagining what this corridor will look like,” she said.

Part of the process is figuring out what to do with the Crawford Bridge, which the Illinois Department of Transportation classified as deteriorating in 2019. The bridge was repaired in 2022, but replacement was one of the possible outcomes of the Pulaski Corridor Study.

Preliminary research indicates that the bridge is historically significant and eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Places.

Historicbridges.org rates the Crawford Bridge on a scale of 10 to 6 from a national perspective, raising its rating to 7 from a local perspective as “one of the oldest truss bridges on these waterways.”

“The bridge stands out from the group as significant… a traditionally constructed example of a 1930s truss bridge,” the listing states.

Killen said the county has recognized its historical significance.

“How can the structure be preserved and what alternatives do we have so that there is no reconstruction of this structure because of its historical presence and identity?” she said.

“Our first goal is to have no impact at all. If impact is necessary, we must minimize that impact as much as possible.”

Killen said the bridge is now in “good condition” thanks to work in 2022, which gave planners “time and space to evaluate and prioritize improvements for the corridor and the bridge itself.”

“We don’t want to destroy historical elements that are important to the communities,” she said.

Most of the other bridges over the Cal-Sag were built in the 1960s and 1970s, making the Crawford Bridge a flagship of the region's historic bridges, with solid connections to its very famous cousins ​​on both American coasts.

It may not be as famous as Chicago's drawbridges, but it has its own significance in the region's history.

“One of the cool things about Chicago is the amazing and historic bridges,” said Frisbee of the McCormick Bridgehouse Museum. “They're all individual – they're all really fabulous.”

Landmarks is a column by Paul Eisenberg exploring the people, places and things that have left an indelible mark on the South. You can reach him at [email protected].