Let’s return to my 2007 trip along Old State Road 37 and the Dixie Highway between Indianapolis and Bloomington.
Not a quarter mile south of the end of the Martinsville segment, the next segment of SR 37’s old alignment appeared.
This segment began quietly among a field of yellow-flowered weeds. The road seemed unusually narrow. I wondered if it widened when it met the original SR 37 roadway.
Beyond the curve, the road didn’t widen. The road lacked the two-foot “extensions” on either side I had seen since Johnson County.
Shortly I came upon this wonderful old bridge. This three-span pony truss bridge was built in 1925.
I love this bridge, and have returned to it several times since 2007. Here’s a photo I made of it in 2012.
The posted 3-ton limit was a big clue that this old bridge was not as strong as it once was.
Sadly, in 2015 this bridge failed an inspection and was closed. Here’s a photo from the last time I visited it, in 2017. I wrote about that visit here.
The I-69 plans use a lot of the old SR 37 alignments as frontage roads, but the plans don’t make clear what will happen here. I’m not optimistic about this bridge’s chances for survival.
Let’s return to 2007 now. It seems like this segment, which is about a mile long, just provides access to a couple neighborhoods to the east. The narrow pavement along this segment was smooth and even but unstriped. Soon I reached the end. Most segments of old alignments that end this way clearly complete a line with the current road or pick up on the other side of the road, at least in my experience, but that was not true with either end of this segment.
Next: A stretch of early-1920s concrete pavement in Morgan County.
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