More Fun Than Gnomes Or Flamingos
on 11/01/2013 at 03:33 PM
That is a 9.5 on the cool scale. You live in a great part of the country Drew. Where can the story of that bridge be found?
Well, at other pages at the bridge sites I’ve linked to. Or visit historicbridges.org, which has bridges, tunnels, and viaducts from all over the country. Or you can wait a few days, since I’m planning a visit. This one and another one nearly as old are just over the line into PA.
If you know the name of a bridge, sometimes Wiki can help you out. This one in particular is in Saucon PA.
For me, my interest began with the railroads, specifically a train called the “Phoebe Snow” which my mother rode to college in. That route, Hoboken NJ to Buffalo NY, opened my mind to an enormous amount of history, as it is an exact parallel of American Expansionism in the 19th Century, the Great Religious Awakening in the same area (LDS etc), the whole thing with the canals here in the northeast, the advent of steam (ships and trains), Westward Ho!, and the Industrial Revolution. The age of wood and stone moving into the age of iron and then steel. Not to forget the Big Dig (the Lackawanna Cut-Off), a turn of the century earth moving project bigger than digging the Panama Canal. Which HAD to be built to solve logistical problems caused by two earlier tunnels, one of which I unknowingly was driving over 4x per week!
All this showed me what REAL American Exceptionalism is all about; hard work and dreams building technology that literally moves mountains. Or digs under them when everyone says it can’t be done. I found the history of the labor movement in the name of a brand of steel on a beam. I saw the advancement of education, technology, and infrastructure in the design and building method of the bridges around me, which span the whole era, 1825 to today.
Walnut Street bridge built in 1860?
