Louis Leonard Bradbury

Louis Leonard Bradbury was a capitalist, miner and landowner. Mr. Bradbury was born in Bangor, Maine, in 1823. He was married in 1868 to Senorita Simona Martinez in Mazatlan, Mexico and had six children. They lived in the foothill community of what is now known as Bradbury and had a home in Los Angeles.

Louis Leonard Bradbury acquired 2,750 acres of the Rancho Azusa de Duarte. This was a land grant awarded to Andres Duarte before California became part of the United States, in 1892. Mr. Bradbury built an elegant home on his land and surrounded it by a notable garden, which is now the site of the Royal Oaks Manor.

With the 1907 extension of Huntington's Pacific Electric System through Duarte to Glendora, a cut was created to level the railroad's right of way in front of L.L. Bradbury's country home. To provide access to his home, Bradbury commissioned the construction of this bridge. Like the Puente largo Aéreo bridge carrying the Pacific Electric over the San Gabriel River, it is an early example of reinforced concrete bridges in the western United States. The bridge is about 90 feet long. The arch is 60 feet long and 23 feet high above the roadbed. The roadway, paved directly on top of the arch, is 22 feet wide. Closed to traffic around 1960 it has remained open for pedestrian use. The original stairs were removed, but were replaced during the renovation in 2003.