 Let me introduce Mr. Steadman. He's been very, very significant to the restoration of the bridge and to the history of the bridge. He is a de facto dean and senior statesman of the San Antonio and South Texas Society of Professional Engineers. He retired as president of the W.E. Simpson Company of Professional Engineers. He worked as a founding member of the restoration group and was the person responsible for listing the bridge as a Texas civil engineering landmark. So if you see the plaque, you go over to the bridge and you see the plaque about it being a state landmark. He worked on that centrally. He also got it listed on the National Register of Historic Places. So he's going to talk about kind of the engineering history of the bridge based on his long history of working in that capacity. Mr. Steadman? Good morning. Good morning. Glad to be here and at my age I'm glad to be anywhere. If you talk about age, historic, the Hay Street Bridge was built originally in 1881. It's 132 years old. The trusses themselves. It served as a railroad bridge across the Nueces River west of Uvalde. When the railroad wanted to cross all the east side streets, the city demanded a viaduct for traffic to get over the main line of the railroad. So the bridge then was moved and it could be moved because the members were all pin connected. Large metal pins connected each joint. At that time it was new enough that the pins could be removed and it could be brought over here in pieces and re-erected. It was re-erected, brought over here in 1910 and re-erected where it is now and has been since 1910. So again, something that's older than I am. As you mentioned, it was designated as a historic structure by the Texas Society of the American Society, the Texas Section of the American Society of Civil Engineers, as a Texas Historic Civil Engineering Landmark. It's also listed as a historic bridge by the city, by the historic foundation, by the Texas Historic Commission, and as she mentioned, it is now listed on the National Register of Historic Places. In 2000 really the effort began to restore the bridge and it was about that time that the restoration group was formed. The street bridge restoration group was composed of east side citizens, the city planning commission, conservation society, and my interest, the engineering groups. I might mention that the conservation society was the first big contributor, something like 53,000 from the conservation society. Our engineering firms and individuals contributed something like 50,000. We were able, the restoration group was able to donate to the city, $189,000 toward the cities required 20% to restore the bridge. We were fortunate in getting federal funds to restore the bridge. We went to Austin before the Texas Highway Commission, went there, there were 100 projects looking for funding, only five could be funded, and we had only five minutes to make our presentation. So we made the presentation and just at the right minute Senator Wentworth came in and addressed the commissioners and answered questions that they might have. We then were one of the five projects that were granted the federal funds. The 80% amounted to $202,089,000, $2.89 million. The city was required to raise the other 20%. In order to do so, the city thought, when we first approached them, that the city thought that they owned the bridge, but it turned out that the railroad owned the bridge and the property that it was owned. And that cost us about five years while the city and the railroad were using legal means to make an agreement to transfer the property from the railroad to the city of San Antonio. The restoration took place after a five-year delay and another delay. Finally, about 2007, the restoration really began with the Patrick Sparks company who had restored the New Braunville South Street Bridge during the engineering for its restoration. It was all handled very well and since the trusses themselves were out of raw iron, they didn't rust, they were very durable. All we had to do in restoring the trusses was to clean them and paint them with linseed oil. Now, it was different because when we brought the cross members supporting the deck, when it was brought here, it was widened from 16 feet to 25 feet. So the 25-foot members both on the deck and on the overhead were regular steel and they had to be brushed, sanded and repainted. But the trusses themselves, raw iron, were very durable and you can see as you cross the bridge that in fact we did have to replace the rivets. And in order to do that, there was no one in this area that knew how to do riveting. So a man was brought in from Michigan, sort of a donated service to show our contractor how to do the riveting. That was part of the restoration the rivets replaced and then the restoration was complete. And the main cost of the restoration I might add was the replacement of the two long concrete approaches that had deteriorated. That was the main cost of the restoration. Let me add that as part of the restoration, those approaches became historic in themselves because they replaced the historic portion of the bridge. The brewery was making a comment that he was going to attach to the non-historic part of the bridge. You can't do that, it's all historic. And in 2005 some members of the restoration group, three of us, Nettie and I and the president of the Conservation Society at that time, across Budco who was selling their property along Cherry Street, we approached them to see if they would donate the land north of the bridge for parking or regular parking and tour bus parking and for a small park for the neighborhood and for this whole city to use. Budco quite easily donated that property to the restoration group. The restoration group of course was not incorporated so we couldn't give them the tax deduction that they needed. So we approached the city and the city said, well we can't do anything with it now but we will take it and hold it until you can develop it. In the city council, in October 4, 2007, the city council accepted that property for public use and it is a great link to the historic Hay Street Bridge. That was the council's decision in 2007. The bridge with restoration was completed and reopened for bicycle and foot traffic in July of 1910 with a great big ceremony at all. Did I go back to 1910? I was born in 1926 so I spent most of my life in the 1900s. My wife catches me saying that also. Thank you for correction. Most recently, of course, is the question of the brewery and someone else probably will tell you more about that. But the new city council in a sense gave that property that they said they would hold for us. They gave it to the brewery in a sense. They were going to sell it to him and then give him $800,000 in free money. So the Esperanza group have been very helpful in putting our case before the city, before the community and the city and where now, as someone else would tell you, involved in the lawsuit to see that that property returns to its rightful owners. There are two spans on the bridge, one about 140 feet, the other about 240 feet. The longer span is a Whipple Phoenix span. Squire Whipple, Squire was his given name. Squire Whipple wrote the first textbook on the design of bridges. And Phoenix was the ironwork out of Pennsylvania that fabricated the Whipple Phoenix bridge structure. So it is very rare and in addition to being historic. Mr. Steadman, didn't the two spans, were they not at separate locations before they were combined here? I've heard that. I know for a fact that the longer span came from the crossing of the new valley. When we're seeing the two stretches, what are we seeing from an engineering perspective? In other words, is it the way the weight is distributed or could you tell us a little bit about what we see when we see those two different kinds? I know it's hard. Structural members spanning a distance defend a whole lot on depth. There's that post tensioning has cured some of that. But the longer span of course is a deeper trust. And that's the reason because it's spanning much farther. And what's the trust? You said it's a deeper trust. What's a trust? The trusts are all the members and you'll find that they're mostly triangles. A triangle is the only stable geometric figure. So you'll see a lot of triangles in a trust. So all the members making up those triangles, both the top part and the bottom part, top part takes compression. The bottom part takes tension. And then they're connected with the diagonals and verticals to form the trust. It seems to me there's two different kinds of supporting members. The one is round and it's in four parts and it's riveted together. The other one looks kind of like an IV to me on the other span. Can you talk to the different construction techniques? No, they're both in length. He's talking about the actual makeup of the members. One of the members are round and the other is more like IV. Oh, you're talking about the members that are made up of sections of a circle and riveted together. That's the designation of the Phoenix part. That was a particular design of the Phoenix Bridge Company out of Pennsylvania to make those members out of sections riveted together. That's beautiful.