Lyndon Bridge

Near the village of Lyndon in Whiteside County stands the last metal through-truss bridge remaining in the county. Built in eighteen ninety-four at a cost of about twenty thousand dollars, the Lyndon Bridge carries a Parker Pratt truss design that was the preferred engineering solution for medium-span road bridges across the Midwest in the late eighteen hundreds. Whiteside County closed it to traffic in nineteen eighty and was preparing to demolish it in nineteen ninety-five when local citizens organized to save it.

They succeeded, and the village of Lyndon took ownership in nineteen ninety-eight, converting it to pedestrian use. The bridge was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in two thousand three. It is a modest structure, but its survival against the wrecking ball makes it a small monument to the communities that choose to keep their history rather than pave over it.