Tulsa's 11th Street Bridge

Completed in 1916, Tulsa's 11th Street Bridge provided a grand entrance to downtown as the city's commercial and financial district expanded with the oil boom across the Arkansas River. Among the longest concrete arches in the state, it signaled Tulsa's emergence as the Oil Capital of the World. Harrington, Howard & Ash of Kansas City used the latest engineering techniques to build what the Tulsa World called "A Model Structure," with many modern features and architectural beauty in the fashionable Classical Revival style. Two ornamental columns framed the west entrance, elaborate street lights shone for miles after nightfall, and open balustrade railings lined both sidewalks. A street railway ran down the center, carrying people and supplies between downtown and the oil fields, while telephone and telegraph lines ran below the deck along with provisions for oil men. By the late 1920s, maintenance problems and safety concerns had arisen, but after Route 66 was designated a transcontinental U.S. highway in 1926, the bridge gained new life as a crossing on "America's Main Street."

Tulsa, Oklahoma · United States