Utah State Route 128
State Route 128 is a 44.5-mile-long state highway in the U.S. state of Utah. The entire length of the highway has been designated the Upper Colorado River Scenic Byway. The Dewey Bridge, built in 1916, was the longest suspension bridge in Utah until it was destroyed by a fire started by a child playing with matches in 2008.
About Utah State Route 128 in brief
State Route 128 is a 44.5-mile-long state highway in the U.S. state of Utah. The entire length of the highway has been designated the Upper Colorado River Scenic Byway. The highway was originally constructed to connect rural cities in eastern Utah with Grand Junction, Colorado, the largest city in the region. The Dewey Bridge, built in 1916, was the longest suspension bridge in Utah until it was destroyed by a fire started by a child playing with matches in April 2008. The road also forms part of the Dinosaur Diamond Prehistoric Highway, a National Scenic byway, and the Arches National Park portion of SR-128 is not accessible to the general public. The last 3 miles of the road parallel the railroad and is an old routing of US-6US-50, in use before the construction of I-70. It ends at Interstate 70 near Cisco, a ghost town along the main line of the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad, founded as a water re-filling station for steam locomotives. It was originally built to carry a ferry across the Colorado River, but in 1913, the ferry was out of service for a time because the ice in the river struck the ferry.
The bridge featured an all wood deck measuring 502 feet long, 10.2 feet wide from support to support, and 8 feet wide to support from rail to rail. It also consisted of two metal towers, a run of seven cables on each side of each tower, and a cable on each of the cables on the other side of the cable. It has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It is also known as “the river road” because of the narrow, steep gorge along which it follows. There is no park access along the highway, but the highway does offer views of several features in the park, including Grandstaff Canyon, Morning Glory Arch, and boat docks at a curve in the River called Big Bend. The canyon walls of the gorge are recommended for their beauty on vacation guides from as far away as France and Germany. The Utah Department of Transportation has prohibited trucks and vehicles over 55,000 pounds from the entire highway. In addition, a restriction at the junction with U. S. Route 191 requires vehicles over 15 feet wide to have two police escorts.
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This page is based on the article Utah State Route 128 published in Wikipedia (as of Nov. 01, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
