7700 feet long with a 177-foot clearance to the Neches River the rainbow bridge was tall enough to pass the airship tender USS Patoka - which never actually got here - and numerous off shore oil platforms from the Beaumont ship yards.
this through arch structure built in 1938 is the tallest bridge in Tejas. it used to was counted the tallest in all the 48 states but some folks have peculiar notions about definitions and measuring and stuff like that so the rankings are far from settled... really, a bridge over a chasm is merely high, not tall.
FYI: in principle this is currently only half a bridge; the neighboring Memorial Bridge, a cable stayed design that is not entirely loathsome, takes traffic the other way over a 143-foot rise. read more