Bailey bridge to be installed on Grandview’s Truman Presidential Trail after decade in storage

By Tony Madden

Improvements on the Harry S Truman Presidential Trail in Grandview are set to begin in May and are expected to take 4 months to complete, city officials and engineers say.  On Tuesday, Grandview’s Board of Aldermen approved an agreement with Burns & McDonnell Engineering for construction services on the project.

The three-mile Presidential Trail, completed in 2017, starts at the Truman Farm Home and follows Harry S Truman Drive where it connects to the Longview Lake Greenway Trail.

Plans include installing a restored Bailey bridge on the trail for pedestrians, as well as converting the half-mile gravel path through Southview Park into a 10-foot wide concrete path. The improvements are covered by $900,000 in state and federal funds, according to Grandview’s engineer Athena Huynh.

The Bailey bridge, a type of prefabricated bridge designed in World War II for easy assembly, was originally purchased by Blue Springs in 1994. From 1996 until 2008, it was used as the Kenneth Road bridge over the Blue River at the state line.

The restored bridge installation was a part of the original Presidential Trail plan in 2017, Huynh told the Telegraph. It was intended to be the pedestrian crossing over a stream into Longview Lake just north of Harry S Truman Drive. However, the bridge hasn’t been erected there due to a lack of funding, Huynh said. 

Instead, the trail was configured along the northern edge of the road where it crosses the stream. This brings pedestrians and bicyclists within feet of traffic, according to Grandview Public Works Director Doug Wesselschmidt.

The safer solution, Wesselschmidt said, is the Bailey bridge crossing. The one-lane bridge will span over the stream approximately 40 feet north of Harry S Truman Drive, leading pedestrians away from traffic.

The Bailey bridge has a complicated story of its own. The one-lane structure saved the day in 1996, when it temporarily replaced the Kenneth Road bridge over the Blue River. That year, the original Kenneth Road bridge was closed when its weakened trusses snapped under the weight of a large truck.

The Bailey bridge was seen as a temporary solution in 1996. But the crossing, situated near the corner of Jackson, Cass and Johnson Counties, became a question of jurisdiction funding. The Bailey bridge spanned the Blue River for 12 more years while local officials negotiated a solution for a new bridge. 

By then, it was too late. In 2008, another truck hauling concrete struck the Bailey bridge in 2008, rendering the Blue River uncrossable via Kenneth Road. A new, $2.8 million concrete bridge opened the crossing back up to traffic in 2020.

The Bailey bridge, which is now being prepped for reassembly, was originally purchased in 1994. It originally replaced a 1905 steel truss bridge over the Little Blue River on R.D. Mize Road in Blue Springs. A new concrete bridge was built for motorists on R.D. Mize Road in 1996.

Tara Oursler, who lives and works in the south Kansas City area, remembers the Bailey bridge by a different name: the “crickety bridge.” She moved to the area from Arizona with her family around 1986. The name came from the sound the bridge made when her father crossed over it in his truck, Oursler said.

She added she is glad the bridge will have a new home on the Truman Presidential Trail in her own community. 

“We would always love to go across the crickety bridge,” Oursler said. “That was a core memory for myself and my siblings.”