This paper presents a new neural network control for nonlinear bridge systems with earthquake excitation. We design multi-layer neural network controllers with a single hidden layer. The selection of an optimal number of neurons in the hidden layer is an important design step for control performance. To select an optimal number of hidden neurons, we progressively add one hidden neuron and observe the change in a performance measure given by the weighted sum of the system error and the control force. The number of hidden neurons which minimizes the performance measure is selected for implementation. A neural network was trained for mitigating vibrations of bridge systems caused by El Centro earthquake. We applied the proposed control approach to a single-degree-of-freedom (SDOF) and a two-degree-of-freedom (TDOF) bridge system. We assessed the robustness of the control system using randomly generated earthquake excitations which were not used in training the neural network. Our results show that the neural network controller drastically mitigates the effect of the disturbance.