Little Nemaha River Bridge – NHR

As indicated by a builder’s plate on the bridge itself, the structure was erected in 1901 by the John Gilligan
Company of Falls City, Nebraska. Marketed extensively by virtually all of the in-state bridge contractors and
promoted in the form of standardized designs by the Nebraska State Engineer’s office, the pinned Pratt pony
truss was used widely by Nebraska’s counties to carry roads over the state’s myriad small streams. Thousands
of such small-scale trusses were erected across the state in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and
many remain today. The Little Nemaha River Bridge, located near Syracuse, is technologically significant as one
of the earliest examples in Nebraska of this common type, and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.