Las Pilitas Bridge 1916 Traditional Cache
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This 99-year-old bridge on the Salinas River was formally decommissioned in 2005 by the placement of a new bridge upstream (south – odd, I know. But the Salinas River does flow north). It is eligible for the National Register of Historic Places, but has not yet received that status. To paraphrase a local geocacher named Rodfly's log: "This bridge was planned just before The Great War (1914). Designed in 1915, constructed in 1916 and registered in 1917. Then most of any steel went in to the machinery for the War." The bridge is 231 feet long and only 15 feet wide. I spoke with a gentleman who remembers passing another vehicle on the bridge (his truck was about 7 feet wide). It is described as a "through truss bridge" because the truss members are both above and below the roadbed.
According to the 1917 dedication placard on site, it was constructed by the "Gutleben Brothers Builders, S.F." A classified advertisement under the Building Contractors section of the San Francisco Call dated February 1909, show "Gutleben Brothers" doing business at the address 944 Monadnock building in San Francisco. In the advertising section of a May 1909 magazine entitled Architect and Engineer Co., there is an ad for Gutleben Brothers Contractors offering architectural and engineering construction. The address is again listed at 944 Monadnock Building. C.T. Gutleben and Dan Gutleben are named therein.
If you're interested in old bridges, check out bridgehunter.org This is California bridge number CA 49C-190. Not a lot of traffic on this road therefore, a lot of bicyclists find it ideal for a bicycle loop through Pozo.
I cannot locate any information on the cost to build this particular bridge (however, I noted SLO County alone bore the cost). The new bridge cost several agencies a total of $4 million.
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