Puente Blanco Bridge, Spanning Mosquito Control Channel, Barrio Palmas neighborhood, Catano, Catano Municipio, PR

Significance: Puente Blanco is a skew, three-span, 15m.-long concrete slab bridge. The latter is a common bridge technology of the 1920s to 1940s, still used in small structures. This technology was judged as not technologically significant for inclusion in Puerto Rico's Historic Bridge Inventory, and this bridge thus was not considered. However, Puente Blanco was built to span a channel dug in the 1940s through a historically significant highway dating from 1853 for wetland drainage and disease control, related to a military build-up; it has art deco-style parapets, and was enough of a landmark in a naked landscape that it served to name an adjacent community. This structure has been judged as eligible for National Register listing by Puerto Rico's State Historic Preservation Office.
Survey number: HAER PR-34