The Half Chance Iron Bridge, also known as the Half-Chance Bridge, is a historic single span wrought iron

Wrought iron

thumb|The [[Eiffel tower]] is constructed from [[puddle iron]], a form of wrought ironWrought iron is an iron alloy with a very low carbon...

 bridge

Bridge

A bridge is a structure built to span physical obstacles such as a body of water, valley, or road, for the purpose of providing passage over the obstacle...

 located near the small community of Half Chance, between the towns of Linden

Linden, Alabama

Linden is a city in and the county seat of Marengo County, Alabama, United States.. The population was 2,424 at the 2000 census.-History:Originally known as the Town of Marengo, it was changed to Hohenlinden in 1823 to honor the county's earliest European settlers, French Bonapartist refugees to...

 and Dayton

Dayton, Alabama

Dayton is a town in Marengo County, Alabama, United States. The population was 60 at the 2000 census.-History:Dayton began to be settled in the early 19th century, with a town survey done and a "public well" established in 1832. The post office was established in 1837. It was incorporated on...

 in rural Marengo County

Marengo County, Alabama

Marengo County is a county of the U.S. state of Alabama. It is named in honor of a battlefield near Turin, Italy, where the French defeated the Austrians on June 14, 1800. As of 2010 the population was 21,027...

, Alabama

Alabama

Alabama is a state located in the southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Tennessee to the north, Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gulf of Mexico to the south, and Mississippi to the west. Alabama ranks 30th in total land area and ranks second in the size of its inland...

. It is on Marengo County Road 39 over Chickasaw Bogue Creek. The bridge is the oldest surviving iron bridge in Alabama, making it an important transportation and engineering landmark for the state.

Half Chance Iron Bridge is a 12 feet (3.7 m) wide tied-arch bridge with a span of 100 feet (30.5 m). It was built by the King Iron Bridge Manufacturing Company

King Bridge Company

The King Iron Bridge & Manufacturing Company was a late-19th-century bridge building company located in Cleveland, Ohio. It was founded by Zenas King in 1858 and subsequently managed by his sons, James A. King and Harry W. King and then his grandson, Norman C. King, until the mid-1920s...

 of Cleveland, Ohio

Cleveland, Ohio

Cleveland is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and is the county seat of Cuyahoga County, the most populous county in the state. The city is located in northeastern Ohio on the southern shore of Lake Erie, approximately west of the Pennsylvania border...

 in 1880. King Iron Bridge Manufacturing Company was founded in 1871 by Zenas King

Zenas King

Zenas King was born in Vermont in 1818. He started his career of building bridges in 1858 and moved from Cincinnati to Cleveland, Ohio around 1861. He established a bridge building works on Watson Street in Cleveland in 1865. King founded the King Iron Bridge & Manufacturing Company in 1871...

. As early as 1878 it was manufacturing many types of truss, combination, and wooden bridges and by the 1880s it was the largest highway bridge works in the United States.