Construction bids have been received and bridge pieces have arrived for the westernmost leg of the Salt Creek Trail.
Bids were opened in late April for the Department of Natural Resources’ portion of the trail. This portion is set to go through Eagle Park between two large highway bridges. Pieces of the bridges — which used to span the Eel River on State Road 46 in Clay County — were delivered to Brown County last week, where they will be reassembled and repainted to cross the creek in two places.
“Pretty much we’re getting as close to a new bridge as we can get, because they replaced all of the rusted parts, rehab and refurnished,” county commissioner Diana Biddle said at the April 15 commissioners meeting.
The Indiana Department of Transportation is paying for all the bridge work.
“It will come in primed. The color it is painted now, when it comes in, will not be the finished color. … The final color will go on once it’s put up.” Biddle said that color will be a “barn red.”
Brown County Highway Superintendent Mike Magner said earlier this year that it would be fall before the bridge pieces are put back together.
The bridges will be used to connect sections of the trail in Eagle Park. The Eagle Park portion of the trail will run from Brown County State Park to Parkview Road. The other bridge will go over the part of Salt Creek that divides the state park from Eagle Park.
At the April 15 meeting, Magner opened bids from three companies for construction of this section of the trail. Bids ranged from $398,375 to $812,315. They were taken under advisement and the bid will be awarded at the next commissioners meeting in May.
The DNR is in charge of building the trail section on Eagle Park and state park property. INDOT is only handling the easements and placement of the bridge for that section.
The paved Salt Creek Trail, in development since the early 2000s, will eventually connect the state park with downtown Nashville, and possibly the county-owned Deer Run Park. The first, three-quarter-mile section, between the Nashville CVS and the Brown County YMCA, opened in 2013.
No definite route has been released for the middle section of the trail to connect Parkview Road and the YMCA.
