Ball Ford Trail Bridge

Located along a muddy road north of Darlington, this Pratt through truss bridge once carried the CB&Q over the Grand River near Albany Junction. The first bridge here was likely a wooden truss. In 1907, the bridge would be reconstructed with the present bridge. The bridge consists of a 175-foot, 7-panel pin-connected Pratt through truss span, set onto concrete piers and approached by timber pile trestle spans on either end. The truss span was reused from one of the 200-foot, 8-panel Pratt deck truss spans, originally fabricated in 1879 by Kellogg & Maurice of Athens, Pennsylvania for the first bridge at Plattsmouth, Nebraska. The First Plattsmouth Bridge was designed by George S. Morison, a prolific bridge engineer who constructed numerous large truss bridges throughout the United States. When the Plattsmouth bridge was replaced by the current bridge in 1903, the old spans of that bridge were reused. This span was converted from a deck truss to a through truss, and shortened by one panel upon relocation.

Many railroads reused steel and iron spans to save costs on bridges. Often, when a span became inadequate at one location, it could feasibly be rebuilt and installed at another location. Occasionally, the rebuilding would include converting a span from a through to a deck span, or vice versa. It is unknown how much of the original floor was removed and rebuilt when the bridge was converted from a deck to a through span. Often, these conversions were challenging, and required replacing a large amount of structural members of the bridge. Evidence of this rebuilding can be found throughout the bridge, such as empty rivet holes at the endposts. It appears that other repairs were also made to the truss.

After the railroad was abandoned, the railroad grade was acquired by Gentry County and converted to a dirt surfaced road. A deck was installed on the railroad bridge without making any alterations to the superstructure or the substructure. In a September 2023 aerial, the south approach of the bridge appears to have been removed, although the truss and northern approach were still intact. It is unknown what the current status of the bridge is. At the 2021 inspection, the bridge was listed as being in poor condition, and the bridge had been closed to traffic in 2020. It is hoped that the work on the bridge was limited to replacing the aging timber trestle approaches. While the bridge has a unique history and is the oldest truss bridge in Gentry County, and among the oldest remaining truss bridges in Missouri; it has been listed as "not eligible for the National Register of Historic Places". The author strongly disagrees with this assessment, and believes this unique bridge should be considered eligible. The author has ranked the bridge as being highly significant, due to the unique history, age, structural alterations and adaptive reuse.