Month: December 2020

Minneapolis 2020 — THE FLENSBURG FILES

Photo by Josh Hild on Pexels.com If there is a city that serves as a defining moment for 2020, it would be one in my original home state of Minnesota- Minneapolis. The largest city in the state with over 400,000 inhabitants, the city with a history dating back more than 170 years, the city that […]

Minneapolis 2020 — THE FLENSBURG FILES

BHC Pic of the Week Nr. 127

This last pic of the week for the year 2020 takes us home to Glauchau, where we got our first snowfall of the winter season last night on the 28th of December. The snowfall was later than usual but it made for a nice long walk to Grundelteich and back, visiting some places along the way and experimenting with night photos with the Canon EOS 250D, which I’ve had for almost a year now. I took advantage of the combination of snow and the moon, which was fighting through the clouds, and the street lighting and got a few notable pics. One was the Rosarium at the City Park next to the State Theater, the other two were of the wooden pedestrian footbridge at Grundelteich, which leads to the island and the memorial for Heinrich Carl Hedrich, the first person in Germany to have invented the underground canal drainage system. He was also an architect behind constructing the Diversion Canal Flutgraben, which bypasses Glauchau and protects the city from being flooded. The latter was constructed in response to the great flood of 1841, which devastated much of Glauchau and forced many reisdents and businesses to relocate up the hill. Much of Glauchau’s City Center, which includes the Shopping Mile and the three bridges to the Castle, consists of businesses that had once been located along the River Zwickau Mulde. You will find more info on the Flutgraben by reading up on Glauchau’s Bridge Tour Guide which you can see here.

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This is my last Pic of the Week post for 2020. Beginning in 2021, we will be paying tribute to a fallen pontist. James Baughn, who was the webmaster of bridgeunter.com, died on December 6th while hiking near his home in Cape Girardeau, Missouri. Starting in January and lasting through the end of the year, we will feature his greatest bridge photos in the Pic of the Week series. That means once a week, we will showcase a bridge, which he photographed, and provide some facts about it. You can still see my bridge photos in my Instagram page, which you can click here and follow.

This is the first of three major items we will be doing to honor the person who compiled America’s largest bridge database, which is now being operated by Historic Bridge Foundation. The other two will be announced when the winners of the 2020 Bridgehunter Awards will be given out on January 23rd. You still have time to vote and if you want to access the ballots, click here:

Best Bridge Photo: https://bridgehunterschronicles.wordpress.com/2020/12/06/2020-bridgehunter-awards-best-bridge-photo/

Bridge Tour Guide: https://bridgehunterschronicles.wordpress.com/2020/12/06/2020-bridgehunter-awards-best-bridge-photo/

Mystery Bridge & Lifetime Achievement: https://bridgehunterschronicles.wordpress.com/2020/12/07/2020-bridgehunter-awards-part-3-mystery-bridge-and-lifetime-achievement/

Best Kept Secret, Best Example of Restored Historic Bridge and Bridge of the Year: https://bridgehunterschronicles.wordpress.com/2020/12/09/2020-bridgehunter-awards-part-4-bridge-of-the-year-best-example-of-a-restored-historic-bridge-and-best-kept-secret-individual-bridge/

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While we were not able to do much bridgehunting because of the Covid-19 pandemic this year, we really hope that the next year, 2021, will bring hope and healing to everyone who has been affected by the virus, from family members grieving over their lost ones, to neighbors who had to live alone, to the elderly who could not even see their families. Each and every single one of us was affected in one way or another. I really hope that lessons can be learned from this experience. My hope is that we put the care of the environment and other people (especially those who need our help) to the absolute forefront of all aspects in life, because our individualism, our strive for greatness without thinking of others, is what got us here in the first place. It’s time for unity and community to tackle the problems that we have ignored for so long- way too long to be frank.

And with that, I hope you all have a chance to reflect on this and think of many ways we can make the environment a better place to live in and help others who need us the most. I wish you the very best for 2021. Stay safe, get the shot and let’s start caring for what matters the most.

See you next year! 🙂

The Stocky Approach — Old Structures Engineering

I’ve mentioned several times, including yesterday, my preference in bridges for through trusses (where the deck is aligned near or at the bottom chords and the trusses are connected to one another top and bottom) or deck trusses (where the deck is aligned near or at the top chords and the trusses are connected to […]

The Stocky Approach — Old Structures Engineering

Advertising — Old Structures Engineering

Most of the old steel companies put their name on their products. Structural steel members are made by passing hot metal between sets of rollers that squeeze it into shape; it’s easy enough to engrave letters on the roller surface so that they make raised letters appear on the web of an I beam, or…

Advertising — Old Structures Engineering

Taxonomy — Old Structures Engineering

The National Park Service – in the form of the Historic American Engineering Record – was kind enough to create this illustrated guide to trusses. It’s incredibly handy to have around when you want to categorize an old bridge, but it occurs to me that it inadvertently says something about the way engineers design. 583…

Taxonomy — Old Structures Engineering

The Ben F. Jones Bridge – Rocky Creek Bridge — Lynn and Judy’s Bridge Walking Blog

Our 22nd Bridge. Cape Foulweather – Depoe Bay. August 2020. In the early years of the 20th century, Oregon’s soon-to-be-built coastal highway was called The Roosevelt Coast Military Highway. Probably, (but hard to verify) it was named for Teddy Roosevelt. The military part of the name was a nod to the impending world war and […]

The Ben F. Jones Bridge – Rocky Creek Bridge — Lynn and Judy’s Bridge Walking Blog

Cook’s Chasm Bridge — Lynn and Judy’s Bridge Walking Blog

Our 16th Bridge. Cape Perpetua, just south of Yachats. June 2020. For at least 6,000 years, the Alsea people inhabited the area around Cape Perpetua. They called the cape Halaqaik which roughly means open or exposed place. Then in 1778 Captain James Cook gave the promontory its present name in honor of Saint Perpetua. Long […]

Cook’s Chasm Bridge — Lynn and Judy’s Bridge Walking Blog

Small And Cute — Old Structures Engineering

Like a few other pictures of bucolic scenes I’ve posted here, this is the Bronx River, probably a little bit after 1900. The countryside is not quite as untouched as it might seem: that waterfall is actually a weir, and this area was already part of Bronx Park. 331 more words

Small And Cute — Old Structures Engineering

The Bridge — In the Net! – Stories of Life and Narcissistic Survival

Deh Cho/Mackenzie River Bridge The Deh Cho Bridge is a one km-long cable-stayed bridge across a 1.6 km span of the Mackenzie River on the Yellowknife Highway near Fort Providence, Northwest Territories. I’ve crossed many bridges, both physical and figurative. Some have been “cable-stayed” and others have been ready to fall into an immense crevasse. […]

The Bridge — In the Net! – Stories of Life and Narcissistic Survival