100-Year-Old 80,000-Pound Bridge Makes It To Wyoming Ranch, Will Be Installed Later

Keith and Laura Galloway were in the market for a bridge, an unusual item to be found on anyone’s shopping list, but for the Galloways, it wasn’t a wish list. They needed it.

The couple, who with their sons own and operate Galloway Ranch 2 miles north of Ten Sleep in north-central Wyoming, needed a way to connect their land with their son’s property across the river.

“Our youngest boy, Ethan, has to go through town multiple times a day because he drives over here to work and back, and then we trail cows, and we have semis that are going through town all the time,” Laura told Cowboy State Daily. “It’s 5 miles around. But if we have a bridge, it’s a quarter mile.”

So they were pleasantly surprised when they saw Washakie County had advertised a 90-by-25-foot bridge for sale in the classified section of their local newspaper. The historic Winchester Bridge, which had been perched over Cottonwood Creek since 1925, had recently been decommissioned and county commissioners were looking for an inexpensive way to dispose of it.

“The bridge was actually put up for bid in the newspaper, and we thought, ‘Well, what the heck?’” said Laura. “The guys went and looked at it and said, ‘Yeah, go for it.’ It's plenty long, and it's wide enough to get all of our machinery, and big enough and strong enough to hold semitrucks loaded with hay or silage, and so we just put a bid in on it and happened to win the bid.”

Galloway Ranch

Laura said she and Keith run around 650 head of cows on their ranch, which operates on the west slope of the Big Horn Mountains.

“Our allotment is right around Deer Haven,” said Laura. “So we trail cows from out the Blue Bank, and we usually go into town and go up the main street (of Ten Sleep) by the cemetery, and then we have to go up the hill from there. And then when we're hauling silage and hay, we have to go from (Ethan’s) place – it’s about 5 miles from his place to our place.”

That’s why the couple decided that the bridge across Cottonwood Creek on Winchester Road near Worland might just meet their needs.

“We looked at (using) railroad cars,” said Laura. “But it would have taken two railroad cars to put on there, plus the decking, and (that would have cost) twice as much.”

Once they purchased the bridge for the bargain price of $1,100, the family had until the end of May to figure out how to move a 40-ton bridge 40 miles down the road.

Heavy Lifting

The Galloways contacted Swing Trucking, a transportation company out of Worland, to do the heavy lifting.

“Swing Trucking does a lot of that stuff, and he’s really good at it,” said Laura, speaking of Danny Bertsch, whose grandfather started the company in 1949.

The big rigs arrived at the Winchester Bridge’s old location over Cottonwood Creek 13 miles south of Worland on May 30.

“He went down and loaded it,” she said. “It was him, and then they had, I think, two trucks and a crane, and then the three pilot cars that brought the whole train of stuff over here.”

Bertsch told Cowboy State Daily the bridge weighs about 80,000 pounds, or roughly 40 tons. But he pointed out that his company is outfitted for those kinds of jobs.

“We haul construction and oil field equipment that is heavier,” he said. 

New Life For An Old Bridge

Swing Trucking hauled the Winchester Bridge to its temporary resting place next to the creek that will be its new home. And when the time comes to place the bridge permanently, Laura said they’ll have Bertsch and Swing Trucking set it in place.

“We're going to pour concrete footers on the banks, because it'll go probably about 10 feet on each side out on the bank,” she said. “(Bertsch) thought he could get on one side with the crane, and then he'll put it as far back on his truck as it can go and back it up over the river.

“And then he can hook on it with the crane and pull it across and set it on those.”

Laura said when the bridge was decommissioned, it had a concrete decking that was crumbling. So for it to be usable again, they’ll pour a new concrete decking.

“We probably won't pour it as thick as they had it, but we'll get some of those concrete forms and pour the concrete back on it like it was,” said Laura. “So I imagine it'll be $20,000 to $30,000 to put a new floor on it.

“But the bridge itself was cheap enough.”