Dubois County motorists warned of upcoming bridge closures
County Road 600 West closed for up to 60 days and Bridge 36 shut down for 5-6 weeks, forcing farm and school traffic onto smaller roads.
County Road 600 West was scheduled to close for bridge rehabilitation beginning on or after April 8, 2026, with the work expected to last up to 60 days. Bridge 36 on Celestine Road N, 0.16 miles south of State Road 545, was also set for a 5- to 6-week deck replacement starting June 3, cutting off two important crossings and pushing traffic onto secondary roads.
The closures landed in the middle of a broader summer construction season in Dubois County. County engineers reported multiple bridge closures, near-term completions on other bridge projects and a 10.13-mile package of in-house paving work, with bids due May 4 and work scheduled from June through September. In a county where rural routes connect Jasper, farms, schools and service calls, even a short bridge shutdown can ripple outward to commuters, contractors, delivery trucks and emergency vehicles.
Bridge rehabilitation is usually a preventive fix, not a cosmetic one. The work can include deck repairs, structural work and guardrail upgrades meant to extend the life of a crossing and keep it from becoming a more expensive problem later. That is the tradeoff Dubois County residents face: temporary disruption now in exchange for safer crossings, fewer emergency repairs and infrastructure built to handle years of use.
The county highway department is the office responsible for coordinating those projects, and commissioners have been kept in the loop through regular meetings at the Courthouse Annex in Jasper. Meeting materials list Commissioner Chad A. Blessinger, Commissioner Nick Hostetter and Commissioner Serice Stenftenagel, along with County Auditor Sandra L. Morton, Highway Superintendent Donnie Lueken, Highway Engineer Brent Wendholt and County Attorney Gregory S. Schnarr. The same highway system has also had to manage flooding-related closures near the Patoka River and the West Patoka area, a reminder that bridge upkeep in Dubois County is tied as much to weather and drainage as it is to pavement and concrete.
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