Tulsa's 11th Street Bridge

Tulsa's 11th Street Bridge. Spanning History. When completed in 1916, the 11th Street Bridge offered a grand and stately entrance to downtown Tulsa. Spurred by the oil boom across the Arkansas River, the city's commercial and financial district expanded dramatically. The new bridge was among the longest concrete arches in the state and marked Tulsa's arrival as the Oil Capital of the World., A prominent national engineering firm, Harrington, Howard and Ash of Kansas City, employed the latest trade techniques to erect what the Tulsa World newspaper called "A Model Structure." The paper marveled at its "many modern features and its architectural beauty," all designed in the fashionable Classical Revival style., Two ornamental columns framed the west entrance to the bridge. The Tulsa World described the elaborate street lights as "an exuberance of light that can be seen for miles after nightfall." Open balustrade railings lined both sidewalks. Down the center ran a street railway, shuttling people and supplies between downtown and the oil fields. Telephone and telegraph lines, which were signs of modern commerce, ran below the deck along with what the newspaper reported as "provisions for oil men.", By the late 1920s, the 11th Street Bridge faced maintenance issues and officials questioned the safety of the once-proud city symbol. When Route 66 was designated a transcontinental U.S. highway in 1926, incorporating existing roads and bridges along its path, the 11th Street Bridge gained new life as a crossing on "America's Main Street."