The Lion Bridge

During our walk on Sunday at the Poplar Creek Forest Preserve, we came across the Lion Bridge.
 

I'd never seen it before. But this was a new part of the winding trail for me, passing close to the intersection of Sutton and Golf roads. Just south of the intersection, Sutton crosses Popular Creek, and so does the Lion Bridge, though it's positioned parallel to Sutton, not far to the east. This makes me think that before the modern road was built, an older version of Sutton -- probably a dirt road -- crossed Popular Creek via this bridge. Now the hiking-horse trail crosses via the bridge, with the bicycle trail crossing next to the modern road.

A fine site, HistoricBridges.org, tells me that "Very little is known about the history of this bridge. The designer and contractor is unknown, nor is it known why such elaborate decorative design was applied to this bridge. Nothing about the location of the bridge stands out as reason for the decorative design, which is more like a bridge that would be found in a large city park rather than the relatively open and undeveloped location in which this bridge is located. Constructed in 1906, the bridge is a very early surviving example of a reinforced concrete bridge."

I got as close as I could with my primitive camera, to take a shot of one of the lions.

And of course, we walked across it. Been a while since I was able to walk across a new (to me) bridge.