It is a single span of 72 feet in 6 panels, with a concrete deck with a 20-foot asphalt roadway. Although less glamorous than the spidery truss webs, plate girders and bedstead trusses served the public well for many years. Bedsteads were Warren or Pratt trusses with iron legs which extended down, often to stream level. There they helped to support the light and inexpensive truss. This allowed unusually wide or tall cars to cross without difficulty.
Plate girders function in the same way a tree does when it falls across a stream.
In this case, the tree is a bridge composed of several pieces of iron or steel welded together to form an I shape. Today, one-piece steel beams of various sizes and shapes are still used, at least in part, on many modern bridges. A three-span plate girder railroad bridge over White River, Delaware County, built in 1935 by the Fort Pitt Bridge Works of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It has concrete abutments and piers. The first inspection of Indiana's surviving iron bridges was completed in 1987.