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Town Bridge Road Bridge,
Bridge No. 5222
• Town Bridge Road over Farmington River
• Canton
• Wrought-iron Parker through truss
• Length: 160'
• Built in 1895
• Berlin Iron Bridge Company, fabricator
In a rare departure from its trademark lenticular design, the Berlin Iron Bridge Company supplied a Parker truss, the conventional choice for spans of this length, for the Town of Canton's bridge across the Farmington River. The bridge is unusual in another respect: it combines riveted and pinned connections.
Box-section members such as the top chord, uprights and center diagonals are riveted together using small gusset plates, but the eyebars that make up the other diagonals are secured by pins. Although engineers debated the merits of pinned versus riveted construction in terms of safety, rigidity, and economics, this bridge suggests
that the choice was also partly a matter of convenience in design.
Despite some missing cresting, the bridge's Victorian-style decorative features are unusually complete, including urn finials, curved portal braces, builder's plate, and ornamental railings.