Talk of tearing down the 90-year-old pedestrian bridge over 700th Street emerged in January 2005, when former Logan County highway superintendent Tom Hickman said the bridge posed a liability threat to the county because of its deteriorating condition and no one claimed ownership.

If ownership could not be established, Hickman proposed tearing down the bridge at the same time the county highway department reconstructed the 10-mile stretch of 700th Street, or County Highway 10, linking Mount Pulaski and Elkhart.

But in the months following Hickman's proposal, the Elkhart Historical Society and village trustees have made efforts to establish ownership of the bridge and provide the necessary insurance - both of which stalled the road project the past year and a half.

Logan County Board Road and Bridge Committee members decided Monday, however, to proceed with plans to rework Highway 10 without demolishing the bridge, named one of the 10 most endangered historical sites in Illinois in March 2005.

By agreeing to proceed with the roadwork without resolving the bridge's liability issue, board member Dale Voyles said Elkhart trustees and historical society officials - as well as state officials who began to intervene in the process in early May - should shoulder the burden of any liability claims brought against the county if fallen concrete from the bridge generate a claim.

"Everybody's a piece of the action now," Voyles said. "Everybody's going to get a piece of the apple, if the apple falls from the tree.

"As far as I'm concerned, as a board member, (the village's historical society and the county's tourism bureau) are now a piece of the pie."

Voyles believes the efforts made by Elkhart and state officials to protect the crumbling bridge make them partially responsible for any future claims the county might face if a piece of the concrete bridge damages a vehicle passing underneath.

Abraham Lincoln Tourism Bureau of Logan County director Geoff Ladd told Voyles he, as a layperson, was uncertain if Elkhart and state officials would share potential liability.

But Ladd also said the Elkhart Historical Society, which is slated to accept ownership of the bridge if affordable insurance is found, has received a $3,700 annual quote from an insurance company last month that society members felt they could afford.

However, Ladd said society members now have been asked by the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency to prolong any commitment until state officials have the opportunity to probe the matter.

"I am hoping that the headline tonight is that we are all working together" to permanently restore and preserve the bridge, Ladd said.

"The society worked with the village of Elkhart for a possible solution," he said. "(But) the wheels had been kind of set into motion at the state level.

"We feel this bridge is protected. And safety is a primary concern as far as we're concerned as well."

Ladd said work is being done to add the bridge to the National Register of Historic Places, "and because of that and other protections afforded to this historic structure, any alteration or removal plans would first have to go through a review process by IHPA."

"Right now I would say the road is far more hazardous than the bridge ever thought about being," said Gillette Ransom, an Elkhart Historical Society member whose great grandmother was married to then-Gov. Richard Oglesby, for whom the bridge was constructed.

Logan County highway superintendent Bret Aukamp said plans to proceed with reconstructing County Highway 10 would not prevent the bridge from being removed at a later time if ownership and liability fails to be established.

He said the road project will be completed before winter, but it may not be done before the beginning of the school year.