Most of what I know about Red Bank Bridge of the 1859 Beale Wagon Road was shown in an earlier post, as copied below for convenience.
2. Red Bank Creek, 5.3 miles west of Spiro (50 ft. span), [ 35 14.13 N, 94 42.81 W ], T9N, R24E, Sec. 24;
Whipple bowstring example: https://bridgehunter.com/ny/monroe/ehrmentraut-farm/
Looking at the blm.gov website (above) shows that, after the war and after 1880, the old Beale Wagon Road (at least from Ft. Smith west thru Stigler) became the main road connection from Ft. Smith to Denison, Texas, with a railroad connection probably at Canadian or McAlester, OK. It was also know as a "military road" at the time to Fort Reno. My point is, the road was being kept up by Indian-USA government agencies, and it also was probably a Star Mail Route. It follows that the bridge you saw may have been a follow-up 1880's++ bridge that may have had an identification sign, with the bridge supported by round Lally Column piers/pipes. Jack Beale Smith ran into these old fixtures at Little River (Edwards Trading Post) in 2014, and I have seen them at the old Butterfield Crossing of the Blue River, later updated by the military to serve Fort Sill from the rail station at Caddo, OK (just north of modern Durant) about the same time. It is believed that all of the Beale Iron Bridges were Whipple-patented Cast and Wrought Iron segmented Arch Truss bridges, each truss would have been stable and self-supporting on masonry stone-cut blocks made into piers or bridge abutments, as needed for each site. Only two lengths of Whipple bridges were made for the federal project, 50 & 100 ft. The Red Bank bridge was supposedly 50-feet, so if a longer length was actually needed for access, then wooden ramps would have had to be added to one or both ends, as each site may have needed. See those shown for the websites for the (three in total) Whipple bridge (above).
Send me any and all pictures that you would like to firstname.lastname@example.org. I will let you know what I understand them to be. Thanks for the note.
Also, I have a 16-year old grandson named "Kyle." Yea!