Camelback Bridge

What is Camelback Bridge?

The middle of the bridge was built around a 31-foot wooden kingpost pony truss, with ramps rising to it from each side; that rise and fall gives the bridge its camel's-hump profile. Twelve riveted Phoenix columns, made of curved wrought-iron pieces riveted into a tube, hold up the east and west approaches. Below runs the old Illinois Central rail line, now the Constitution Trail, a walking and biking path across Bloomington-Normal.

History of Camelback Bridge

A bridge has carried this street, once called Sill Street, over the railroad since at least 1895, when one appears on a plat of Normal. Sources disagree on the age of the present structure: the town notes that its iron columns may date from the early 1870s, while the McLean County Museum of History dates the current truss bridge to 1906.

Normal made it a local landmark in 1991, and it joined the National Register in 1997. A rebuild left it wider, slightly shorter and more curved, with a sidewalk on the north side, and it reopened in September 2001 with only the columns and trusses original. In 2020 the town took down the wooden trusses after rot caused the north one to fail; an engineer found the bridge safe for use, and the town has said it is looking at how to restore and reinstall them, so it may look plainer than in older photos.

Visiting Camelback Bridge: tips

Cross it on the north sidewalk, or look up at the iron columns from the Constitution Trail below; 15 minutes is plenty. The Cedar Crest Addition Historic District is about 0.2 mile away and Franklin Square about 0.9 mile.