College Avenue Bridge, Pennsylvania Route 58/ Legislative Route 82 spanning Little Shenango River, Greenville, Mercer County, PA

Significance: The College Avenue Bridge in Greenville, Pennsylvania, is a simple pony truss bridge that spans the Little Shenango River on the northern side of Greenville, providing access to the Shenango Valley Cemetery and Thiel College to the north. In the nineteenth century, the locale of the bridge was important as a milling center, and the Western (Beaver-Erie) Division of the Pennsylvania Canal crossed the site on the northern side of the river. A millrace led from the dammed pond upstream from the bridge to the mills downstream. In 1914, the Canton Bridge Company received a contract from Mercer County to erect 17 bridges. Eight of these were originally approved in 1913, but an expose of alleged bid-rigging caused the contracts to be voided. A year later, Canton Bridge won all the contracts awarded by the county by submitting the lowest bids on all projects. For the College Avenue site, Canton Bridge erected a pin-connected truss bridge that was designed by the county engineer. According to contemporary bridge design authorities, the riveted design should have been selected. The pin-connected design may have been chosen because it was less expensive than the rivet designs. Its seventy years of service have proven the choice to have been a good one.
Survey number: HAER PA-83
Building/structure dates: 1914 Initial Construction