ODOT's Office of Environmental Services reported in 2009 that the center swing spans - but not the five spans on either side toward the riverbanks - were eligible for the National Register of Historic Places “as a surviving example of an uncommon type of bridge technology.”

Specifically, Mr. Huffman said, the pivot mechanism built beneath those spans was rare. And that's the main piece of the bridge that will be set aside and incorporated into a monument in the commemorative park.

Chessie Circle Trail plans call for a new pedestrian bridge to be built across the river at that location at some time in the future, but no funding for such a bridge has been identified. In the interim, the trail may be posted via the Maumee-Perrysburg Bridge, several miles upriver.

Slated for demolition 2017: http://www.toledoblade.com/local/2016/06/20/114-year-old-for...

Mr. O'Reilly said his goal for the existing structure is to document it thoroughly and preserve its center swing spans, which an ODOT report declared were the only part of the bridge that qualifies for historic status.

ODOT's Office of Environmental Services reported in 2009 that the swing spans, but not the five spans on either side leading up to them, were Register-eligible “as a surviving example of an uncommon type of bridge technology.”

While designed to be able to open for tall-masted vessels, the ODOT report noted that no such openings are known to have occurred, and no evidence exists of any motors or controls on the structure. The parallel turnpike bridge's construction in the early 1950s rendered such capability moot.

But it's the swing spans, which are actually a single, double-cantilevered structure of the Pratt truss design, mounted on a pivot, and their associated pier and end rests that are the bridge's “only significant elements” justifying historic preservation, ODOT said.

The bridge-demolition proposal calls for the swing spans to be saved and made available for some sort of unspecified reuse. Even restoring the swing spans alone, and keeping them and the center pier as part of an otherwise new bridge, would cost nearly $6 million, which is more than double the price to salvage them and replace that portion of the bridge with a modern structure, according to a report prepared for ODOT last year by DGL Consulting Engineers of Maumee.