Skip to main content

The National Road - West Virginia - Wheeling Suspension Bridge

Image
By
The Wheeling Suspension Bridge as seen from Wheeling Island (Doug Kerr)
Wheeling and the National Road is home to one of the greatest engineering achievements in American History.  The nearly 170 year old Wheeling Suspension Bridge is the oldest operating suspension bridge in the world.  The bridge was the first to span the main channel of the Ohio River  and connect Wheeling Island to the main City of Wheeling. (1)  Nearby in 1836, a two span covered bridge opened over the back channel of the Ohio.  That bridge crossed at the site of an 1893 truss and modern day bridge that carries Route 40 over the back channel connecting Wheeling Island to Bridgeport, Ohio to this day. (2)  

The story of the Wheeling Suspension Bridge is amplified by a bidding and design war between two prominent suspension bridge designers, Charles Ellet, Jr. and John Roebling.  The two rivals would compete for the commission until Ellet's design won out in 1847.  The 1,010 foot bridge took two years to complete.  It opened on October 20, 1849, although the official grand opening would take place on November 15.  The bridge was immediately put into service as a toll bridge.

(Doug Kerr)
The Terrific Storm
On May 17, 1854, a violent gale destroyed most of the bridge with much of the span crashing into the Ohio.  One account of the collapse read:
"For a few moments we watched it with breathless anxiety, lunging like a ship in the storm; at one time it rose to nearly the heighth of the towers then fell, and twisted and writhed, and was dashed almost bottom upward. At last there seemed to be a determined twist along the entire span, about one half of the flooring being nearly reversed, and down went the immense structure from its dizzy heighth to the stream below, with an appalling crash and roar. Nearly the entire structure struck the water at the same instant dashing up an unbroken column of foam across the river, to the heighth of at least forty feet! " (3)
Many have compared the 1854 collapse to that of the famed 1940 collapse of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge. The collapse ended Ellet's turbulent career as a bridge designer and builder.  To repair the span, Roebling, who had since gained national acclaim for his railroad bridge over the Niagara River, was commissioned to rebuild the bridge at a cost of $42,000 (4).

To preserve the structure and keep it usable, the bridge would have major repairs done in 1956, 1982, and 1999.  In recent years, the fragility of the old structure has come into question as a number of incidents has shut down the bridge for various amounts of time.  Incidents involving overweight and overheight vehicles (the weight limit for the bridge is 4,000 lbs / height limit is eight feet) has caused the Wheeling Police Department to patrol the bridge passing handouts encouraging prohibited vehicles - possibly following GPS directions - to cross elsewhere. (5)

(Doug Kerr)
The Wheeling Suspension Bridge has received numerous awards and honors including:





  • National Historic Landmark; 1975
  • National Register of Historic Places; 1980
  • National Historic Engineering Landmark; 1969
    •  
    Site Navigation:
    Sources & Links: 



  • (1) "Wheeling Suspension Bridge." WVExp.com: http://www.wvexp.com/index.php/Wheeling_Suspension_Bridge (March 5, 2005)
  • (2) Kemp, Dr. Emory. "The Wheeling Suspension Bridge Tour." http://wheeling.weirton.lib.wv.us/landmark/bridges/susp/bridge10.htm (March 5, 2005)
  • (3) "Terrific Storm! Destruction of the Wheeling Suspension Bridge!" The Intelligencer (Wheeling, Va.), vol. 2, no. 225, Thursday, May 18, 1854, p. 3
  • (4) Steinman, D.B. "Dedicationof the Wheeling Suspension Bridge as a National Monument." May 20, 1956.
  • (5) WTRF-TV. "Wheeling Police patrolling size of vehicles on suspension bridge." July 30, 2015.
  • Doug Kerr
    •  
    Labels:

    Comments

    Post a Comment

    Popular posts from this blog

    Interstate 40's Tumultuous Ride Through the Pigeon River Gorge

    By
    In the nearly 60 years Interstate 40 has been open to traffic through the Pigeon River Gorge in the mountains of Western North Carolina, it has been troubled by frequent rockslides and damaging flooding, which has seen the over 30-mile stretch through North Carolina and Tennessee closed for months at a time. Most recently, excessive rainfall from Hurricane Helene in September 2024 saw sections of Interstate 40 wash away into a raging Pigeon River. While the physical troubles of Interstate 40 are well known, how I-40 came to be through the area is a tale of its own. Interstate 40 West through Haywood County near mile marker 10. I-40's route through the Pigeon River Gorge dates to local political squabbles in the 1940s and a state highway law written in 1921. A small note appeared in the July 28, 1945, Asheville Times. It read that the North Carolina State Highway Commission had authorized a feasibility study of a "...water-level road down [the] Pigeon River to the Tennessee l...
    4 comments
    Read more

    Massena Center Suspension Bridge

    By
    The Massena Center Bridge, also known as the Holton D. Robinson Bridge, has had quite the tumultuous history. Situated on the Grasse River just east of Massena, New York in the hamlet of Massena Center, the Massena Center Bridge is a reminder of the efforts the community has made in order to connect over the river. The first and only other known bridge to be built at Massena Center was built in 1832, but that bridge was never long for this world. During the spring of 1833, the Grasse River dammed itself due to an ice dam, flooded and lifted the bridge off its foundation, destroying the bridge in the process.  The floods were frequent in the river during the spring, often backing up the river from Hogansburg and past Massena Center, but not to nearby Massena. After the first bridge disappeared, local residents had to resort to traveling seven miles west to Massena to cross the next closest bridge, and that was no easy task for a horse and buggy. However, it was many decades befo...
    Post a Comment
    Read more

    The Dead Man's Curve of Interstate 90 and Innerbelt Freeway in Cleveland

    By
    "Dead Man's Curve" refers to the transition ramp Interstate 90 takes between Cleveland Memorial Shoreway onto the Innerbelt Freeway in downtown Cleveland, Ohio.  Said curve includes a sharp transition between the two freeways which is known for a high rate of accidents.  Currently the curve (not officially named) has a 35 MPH advisory speed and numerous safety features intended to mitigate crashes.  When the Interstate System was first conceived during 1956, Interstate 90 was intended to use the entirety Cleveland Memorial Shoreway and connect to the Northwest Freeway through Lakewood.  The Innerbelt Freeway was initially planned as the northernmost segment of Interstate 71.  The extension of Cleveland Memorial Shoreway west of Edgewater Park was never constructed which led to Interstate 90 being routed through the Innerbelt Freeway.   Part 1; the history of Cleveland's Innerbelt Freeway and Deadman's Curve The Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956 was signe...
    Post a Comment
    Read more