We’ve added two stone arch culverts to our Cowley County stone bridge list; these were found in Silverdale Township. At a glance, Silverdale seemed like a likely area to find stone arch culverts. After all, Silverdale is famous for its stone, and has been for many years. Actually, however, what we found in Silverdale were mostly excellently built stone slab culverts.
The Culverts
The arch culverts we found were all located within a short distance of each other, and were very close in design to the Cedar Township culverts, consisting of poor to fair-quality stonework and a heavy dose of concrete or at least very hard mortar to help make up the angles. Unfortunately one of these culverts is rather dilapidated, and the next is mostly buried. We also chanced upon a third, which had been widened on both sides and was therefore almost totally obscured.
We do not generally look for obscured stone bridges like this (which requires a careful look through a culvert) unless we have some evidence that leads us to believe there may be a stone arch bridge there, like a culvert near Augusta, Kansas, which was shown on a stone bridge map put out by Butler County, Kansas. However, since we chanced upon this Silverdale Township culvert, it is given a mention on our Cowley County bridge page.
In Detail
The Silverdale culverts are all located on 266th Road. For whatever reason, this relatively short stretch of road was rather exclusively where stone arch culverts were put in within Silverdale Township.
The first culvert, pictured above, is very small and partially collapsed though still functional. The arch is very crude in design, and uses small stones and hard mortar/concrete to make the angles.
The second culvert we found is of much better design than the first, and is in good condition, if partially filled in. This one looks like it would be a more sizable culvert, if it wasn’t buried.
The third culvert we found was located just beyond the second. It looks like a slab on both sides; the only reason we spotted the arch at all was because we looked through the culvert on an obviously widened side that was not totally overgrown to see if there was a stone arch on the other badly overgrown side. There was, as it turned out, an arch bridge in the middle here, but this badly damaged culvert was widened on both sides and almost impossible to see.
With the finding of these culverts, we now have reached the 50 mark for the total number of Cowley stone arch bridges on the roads.
Stone Arch Bridges 