Grant Memorial Bridge and the Brookville Builders

The original Grant Memorial Bridge crossing here was a steel truss structure built in the nineteen twenties by an Ohio construction firm. What survives today is a cast iron nameplate from that original span.

Naming a bridge for Ulysses Grant was common in this part of Ohio. Grant grew up not far from here in Georgetown, and the region claimed him long before the country did. The old steel truss has been replaced, but the nameplate was preserved and remounted as a connection to the structure that carried traffic across this valley for generations. It is a small piece of industrial craft from the nineteen twenties, when county bridge building was serious engineering work done by small Ohio firms.