Daggett County, Utah.
If you drive to Flaming Gorge, you’ll find yourself on U.S. Highway 191, and at some point on your way to the dam and reservoir, you’ll cross the Cart Creek Bridge. Fortunately, there is a large area near the bridge for you to capture photos of the graceful steel arch-designed bridge.
Constructed in 1962, the bridge was originally used for workers to cross Cart Creek on their way to work on the Flaming Gorge Dam. Once the dam was completed, the reservoir backed up into Cart Creek, so the bridge crossed the creek for only two years. Since the dam’s completion, it crosses Cart Creek Bay.
The image above was captured shortly after the completion of the bridge in September 1963. At that time, the dam was not yet completed Cart Creek still flowed naturally into the Snake River instead of the reservoir. More details on the photo and history of the bridge can be found here.
The Cart Creek Bridge is a steel arch suspension bridge, known for its elegant and eye-catching design. It features a single 550-foot span, making it the longest single-span bridge in Utah at the time of its construction. Its beauty earned it an Award of Merit from the American Institute of Steel Construction. Unfortunately, there is no walking path on the bridge.
The bridge’s design is similar to two other bridges in Utah: the Cisco Bridge and the Moab Rim Trail Bridge. The bridge was built by the American Bridge Division of U.S. Steel for USD 810,000. Using an online inflation calculator, the cost in 2023 U.S. dollars would be over $8 million. But no matter the cost, the beauty of this bridge is undeniable.
John Steiner
Journeys with Johnbo 
Wonderful to see it blend so beautifully with the natural surroundings!
The architects did a great job in the esthetic design of this bridge, especially considering the years it was completed.
Fabulous pictures John! Thank you for sharing them with me.☘️
Thank you for taking the time to comment, Eithnea!
It’s a beautiful bridge and reminds me of the Pennybacker Bridge here in Austin.
A friend ensured that I would see it on our journey and made time for us to stop and photograph it.
A well-captured beautiful bridge.
It is truly a beautiful work.
What a cool bridge! Thanks for sharing it. We were so close to it this summer too, but missed it. We had to keep going west on 191 from Vernal. I’ll make a note for next time!
It is, indeed, well worth the stop.
That is a gorgeous bridge, John. It looks like it is leaning, going around a curve in a fast-car kind of leaning. I love bridge pictures. 🙂
For some reason, your comment ended up in my spam folder. Sorry for the long delay in reviewing. Lately, Akismet has been much more critical in what it marks as spam. It’s being overzealous. 🙂
I write like a spammer now. It’s all the AI corrections that are made in my comments. 🙂
I suspect the same for me. AI!
So far, you’ve avoided my spam folder, but I have to check now because, 1. I’m getting more spam now and 2. I found a good friend in my spam folder yesterday.
I’m probably just lucky. 🙂
hahaha I’m sure you are very lucky! 🙂
[…] for photos. Regular readers may remember the story and pictures of this stop from a February post here. We continued south to visit the reservoir and dam, then followed U.S. Highway 101 from Dutch John […]
[…] Photo by Johnbo […]