Linn County approves engineering contract to pursue $2 million KDOT bridge grant

Linn County commissioners voted to authorize a professional services contract with Cook, Flatt & Strobel Engineers and to accept a $2 million grant offer from the Kansas Department of Transportation to replace the bridge on East 850 Road over Little Sugar Creek.

The vote followed a presentation by Kenny Blair, a project engineer with Cook, Flatt & Strobel, who described options for complying with historic‑preservation review and for reducing construction impacts. "I would say we would propose putting a similar handrail on the new bridge that matches ... the old bridge as part of the mitigation," Blair said, describing how architectural features and a roadside interpretive kiosk have been used on other projects to address historic‑resource concerns.

Why it matters: the existing concrete‑arch bridge is more than a century old and at the end of its useful life; KDOT selected the county for a 2027 letting that could provide roughly $2,000,000 toward…