This file portion of www.watertownhistory.org website

Cady Street Bridge

A Botch

1874

Pre 1874

Click on thumbnails to enlarge

View, pre 1874, from Main St Bridge, of Cady Street before bridge was constructed in 1874

1874

Watertown Democrat, Dec 31, 1874

View north from bridge

The Iron Bridge, known as the Cady street bridge, is now in course of construction, which is all right, and no one is opposed to have a passage over Rock River at that point.  But it seems the city, or rather the sapient committee on Streets and Bridges, have got themselves in something of a scrap.  We are told the contractors for building the bridge insisted on the city furnishing the measurements from abutment to pier, and from pier to pier on each span.  The committee on Streets and Bridges took this job, which they never ought to have done, but to have compelled the contractors to make their own measurement, as is usually the case.  The committee made the measurement, and at the same time made a mistake of some six feet as to the length of one of the arches.  The consequence is that in making the castings, the east arch projects some six feet beyond the abutment, and cannot be fastened on it and made secure and permanent as it should be. 

Here is a pretty kettle of fish - the old story of meddling and muddling whatever a set of stupid ignoramuses undertake.  We should like to know how long the upright, fair-minded men of this city purpose (sic) to submit to this cronic (sic) kind of folly before they awake to the necessity of taking public affairs into their own hands, as they can do any moment when they see fit to arouse themselves to the earnest efforts imperatively demanded by the crisis.

1886

Cady St Bridge and Rock River, view from Main Street Bridge, looking north, 1886