Category: History
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The Flint Hills’ Stone Bridge Heritage: Part 2
The Flint Hills of Kansas have a rich stone arch bridge heritage. Despite the initial strenuous objections to the building of these bridges, persistence, especially in the local press, convinced communities to begin building these structures.
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The Flint Hills’ Stone Bridge Heritage: Part 1
The Flint Hills of Kansas feature a rich heritage, including stone arch bridges. After trying wood and steel, Flint Hills counties began to build enduring bridges out of the material of the hills themselves.
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Clues to the Past: Cowley’s “New” Stone Bridges and the Oak Valley Culverts
A comparison of the Oak Valley, Elk County, Kansas, culverts with many of those in Cowley County, Kansas, suggests there were quite a few stone bridges built by local governments independently of the WPA in the 1930s.
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Walter Sharp on Kansas’s Stone Arch Bridge Era
In this post we quote an interview published in 1905 featuring famous Kansas stone bridge builder Walter Sharp, in which Sharp succinctly captures the spirit and methods used in the building of Kansas’s stone bridges.
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Walter Sharp’s Story About Bridges: Part 3
Walter Sharp wrote a series about Cowley’s bridges called “A Story About Bridges. In this final article, Sharp subtly explains what ended Cowley’s stone bridge building.
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Walter Sharp’s Story About Bridges Part 2
Walter Sharp wrote a series about Cowley’s bridges called “A Story About Bridges.” In this second article Walter Sharp honors Cowley county commissioner William Huston.
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Walter Sharp’s Story About Bridges Part 1
Walter Sharp wrote a series about Cowley’s bridges called “A Story About Bridges.” In this first article the process Cowley used to decide how and where to build is described.
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Building Cowley’s Stone Bridges: Walter Sharp’s Articles Part 3
In this post, we quote part of an article written by Walter Sharp in 1922, in which he describes how the Cowley County stone arch bridges were constructed.
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Building Cowley’s Stone Bridges: Walter Sharp’s Articles Part 2
In this post we quote a 1911 article by Walter Sharp, in which he descibes the struggles Cowley County, Kansas, faced when the county first began building stone arch bridges.
Stone Arch Bridges 