This invention relates to a novel design of an open bottom box culvert which can be used to enable roads, highways and other infrastructure to cross streams without infringing on the wetted perimeter of a stream or interrupting the stream gradient. More particularly, this invention pertains to an innovative use of mineral soil (clay, silt, sand, gravel, cobbles, boulders, broken rock, ice or mixtures of any or all of the foregoing), concrete or wood abutments and metal such as steel, and in some cases geosynthetics, to construct an open bottom box culvert structure which can be erected over a stream or creek and enable vehicular loads and other infrastructure to cross the stream or creek. An open bottom box culvert comprising a pair of abutments spatially positioned from each other, at least one corrugated steel plate spanning the top portions of the two spatially positioned abutments, at least one shear connector positioned above the corrugated steel plate and connected thereto, and compacted soil disposed above and on each exterior side of the pair of abutments, the corrugated steel plate and at least one shear connector.