THE LION BRIDGE OF HOFFMAN ESTATES

Our guest contributor this week is Pat Barch, the Hoffman Estates Historian.  This column originally appeared in the September 2013 issue of the Hoffman Estates Citizen, the village’s newsletter.  The column appears here, courtesy of the Village of Hoffman Estates.

The mystery of the Lion Bridge remains.  It is baffling and hard to understand how such a beautiful bridge was built for the use of farmers who needed to transport milk to local creameries and cheese factories in the area.  Wouldn’t a simple bridge be more practical and less expensive?   Many people, including myself, have searched newspaper achieves in Elgin and Palatine for a story that would have announced the opening of the bridge in November of 1906.  Nothing has ever been found.  The records from Hanover Township have never been found and are assumed lost or were discarded long ago.  Only the old Cook County Board reports gave us the cost of the bridge, $3000 shared between Cook County and Hanover Township, but not who built it.

Preparing the forms that would have included the 3 dimensional lions would’ve taken much skill.  Was the concrete poured into the forms onsite or was it done in a nearby town and hauled there?  We investigated bridge builders that built bridges in neighboring Schaumburg Township but got no were with that.  Wouldn’t you work with a river town such as Elgin for skilled bridge builders?  All of these questions have gone unanswered and the mystery remains.  Who built the bridge and why are there no other bridges like it?

The bridge, known as the Lion Bridge for its 4 lions that adorn the east and west sides, is located at the southeast corner of Route 59 and Route 58.  Over the past 106 years it has seen a lot of traffic.  Milk wagons, hay wagons, and other farm traffic would soon include motorized tractors, trucks and cars.  Route 59, also known as Sutton Rd., went up and over Route 58.  The little Lion Bridge would be used to cross the Poplar Creek and access route 59.  The road and the bridge were only one lane wide.  Drivers would pull over to the side of the road if another car was coming toward you.

In the early 70’s the highway department changed the intersection, tearing down the Route 59 bridge over Route 58 and building a new bridge over Poplar Creek with the two highways intersecting at ground level.  The Lion Bridge was abandoned by the highway department and it became the property of the Cook County Forest Preserve.  Only horses and people cross the bridge these days.

Hanover Township Director of Community Relations, Tom Kuttenberg, told me of plans to erect a historic marker at the bridge site.  This will be part of their Hanover Township Heritage Marker program.  It is tentatively planned for the fall once permission is received from the Village of Hoffman Estates and the Cook County Forest Preserve District.

I will also move forward with plans to fill out the forms and send photos of the bridge to Springfield to ask for National Register status in spite of the fact that we can’t tell them who built it.

Getting historical recognition for the bridge will be a wonderful way to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Cook County Forest Preserve.

Pat Barch, Hoffman Estates Village Historian

(Photos are from historicbridges.org.  We thank them for their wonderful reproductions.)