Northwest Road Bridge, Spanning Little River, Westfield, Hampden County, MA

Significance: The Northwest Road Bridge is the second-oldest of four lenticular pony truss bridges and the fifth-oldest of seven extant lenticular trusses of all types in the Massachusetts Highway Department data base. It is the most typical pony truss example of William O. Douglas's first patent, among the three examples in the data base. It is notable for such early features as the tapered floor beams, looped-rod floor beam hangers, and the floor-level wind-truss struts in every panel - features not commonly found in later lenticular truss bridges. The bridge was manufactured by an important late-nineteenth-century bridge fabricator, the Berlin Iron Bridge Company, and is a rare surviving example of a type of metal truss bridge that was once common in Massachusetts.
Survey number: HAER MA-142