The Hubertus Viaduct is one of only a handful of those glorious 19th-century railway bridges that both a) survived WW2 and the post-war reconstruction and b) remain in service. Though the viaduct is not perhaps a common image in the Middle-Rhine Valley, it often appears in other media, as it is one of only two easily photographed operational viaducts in Germany.
A picture taken with a drone of the collapse of a bridge in the municipality of Careiro Da Varzea, Brazil. At least three people died on 27 September and 14 more were injured when a bridge collapsed over a river in the Brazilian Amazon, official sources reported. Three vehicles fell into the river when the…
A box truck became struck the Long Grove Covered Bridge near Robert Parker Coffin Road and Schaeffer Road in Long Grove on Monday. | Photo: Chatter Box of Long Grove A box truck was heavily damaged after it hit the historic bridge in Long Grove Monday afternoon. The bridge has been hit over 30 times […]
Read more here, courtesy of the Barrington Hills Observer:
The bridge has been hit 41 times since its rehabilitation in 2020. It’s leading officials and residents to reconsider what to do with the bridge. The covered bridge is modern, having been built in the 1970s to cover a pony truss bridge that was built in 1906 by Joliet Bridge and Iron Company. Information and photos can be found in the link here. Here’s a poll for you to vote:
You have two weeks to vote. The results will be presented in the Newsflyer podcast on October 16th.
When visiting Hartford, the capital of Connecticut, one will be amazed at the architecture that the city of 123,000 inhabitants has to offer. Apart from the Wadsworth Athenium, Hartford has several historic buildings that date back to the 1700s, such as historic public library, the Old State House, the Travelers Tower and the campus of the University of Connecticut, which is the powerhouse of women’s college basketball. Apart from the history centers that are devoted to Harriet Beecher Stowe and Mark Twain, one of the places that is worth visiting is the historic State Capitol Building. Located Bushnell Park, the Capitol is accompanied with various historic sites, including this one in the picture above, the Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Arch. Located on Trinity Street in the park, the arch was built by George Keller in 1886 and was the first memorial arch of its kind in the United States. It was dedicated to honor over 4000 soldiers who died in the Civil War.
Source: Wikimedia
Little do the people realize, there was once a bridge that was attached to the arch. The bridge was brought to the attention of the pontist community recently because of its unique design. The bridge features a five-span stone arch bridge with a total length of between 160 and 200 feet. When looking at the photos and postcards of the bridge in bridgehunter.com, the first two historic bridges in Europe came to mind: The Alte Brücke in Heidelberg, Germany and the Charles Bridge in Prague in Czechia. Unlike the two, this bridge in Hartford was dated back to the 1700s, but we don’t know when it was built exactly. One postcard pinpointed the build date to 1757, but it is unknown whether this date is accurate. The other is we don’t know who built the stone arch bridge. If the memorial arch was constructed in 1886, it could be that Keller may have built the stone arch bridge itself, which means the bridge is younger than what was on the postcard. In other words, the question we have about the stone arch bridge is when exactly was it built and by whom?
Sadly though, as part of the modernization of the city in the face of increasing population and traffic, the stone arch bridge and the Park River itself were both buried with the river now running underground enroute to the Connecticut River. The memorial arch itself still stands, and cars can travel through it going one way towards the Capitol. An additional street was built that goes past the arch, carrying traffic to the City Center and XL Arena. Hartford itself has been dealing with poverty issues and population loss itself. Once touted as the richest city in the USA, in the past three decades, Hartford has been one of the poorest cities in the country with 30% of the population living below the poverty line and the city being beset by social inequalities and crime.
Hartford however has a lot to offer and it’s a question of civic leaders and city officials to find ways of making the city attractive again. It doesn’t necessarily mean trying to bring in professional teams as they did in the past for hockey, basketball and football. The last professional hockey team, the Hartford Whalers, moved to Raleigh, North Carolina to become the Carolina Hurricanes in 1997. Hartford is loaded with a lot of history and architecture it should pride itself on and should build off on. The Memorial Arch is one of them, as with the now buried Mystery Bridge. It’s a question of how to turn the city around and exploit the city’s strength. From there, it’s all uphill from there.
If you have any information on the Mystery Bridge, feel free to use the Contact Details or comment in the section below. Happy Bridgehunting, folks. 🙂
After breaking to pay our respects to Her Royal Majesty, we’re back on for Pic of the Week. We’re following up on our mystery bridge article written on the Devil’s Bridge in Flensburg and stay along the trail running parallel to Lautrupsbach. Approximately 400 meters east of the Bismarckstrasse Crossing is this gem which has seen better days. It’s a 25-30 meter long concrete arch bridge which crosses the creek enroute to Fruerlund. It used to carry the raillines that west eastward to Kiel before it was rerouted to the present-day route in 1927. Since then it has become a trail.
Despite its existence, there are two issues that involve this bridge. The first one is trying to reach the bridge, which was quite a challenge, speaking from experience. I literally had to jump rocks in the creek to get this photo. Because of the drought, it was really easy to walk the creek despite being full of water. With a normal flow of water of 30 cm- leg deep water- it would not have been recommended otherwise. But nevertheless, the shot was worth it.
Looking at the bridge more closely brought up issue number two- its stability! Walking along the trail, we saw a temporary bridge that was placed on the bridge itself to allow people to use it, be it by foot or with the bicycle. The photo presented here looks at the reason why it was like that! The arch bridge has sustained extensive damage to the foundation, wingwalls and the arches themselves, undermining the bridge’s structural integrity. Given the weather extremities caused by global warming and with it, the extreme flooding versus extreme heat and drought, chances are very likely that the bridge is 2-3 floods shy of being wiped out, should no action be carried out to stabilize the arch bridge, better rehabilitate it.
Granted the temporary bridge was placed there to allow for people to use the trail. In the long term though, a solution will be needed to fix this structural problem. It looks like a small one, but with our current problems with our environment and the aforementioned points, it has the potential to become a big one in the future.
Flensburg currently is electing a new mayor with elections scheduled for October 2. Regardless of whether the incumbent Simone Lange wins another term or if a new mayor is elected, this issue will have to be at least in the top ten of things to do on the list.
Figure 1: The 1st Avenue Bridge over Maple Canyon Shrouded by eucalyptus in Maple Canyon is one of San Diego’s most impressive bridges. This #seismicsaturday we feature the 1st Avenue Bridge. The 463-foot bridge was built in 1931, and is nicknamed “The People’s Bridge” as it was funded by San Diego’s first public infrastructure tax. […]
Figure 1: The 1914 Georgia Street Bridge Would you fight CalTrans to save historic arches? This #seismicsaturday we feature the Georgia St Bridge in the Hillcrest neighborhood of San Diego. In the early 1900s, city planners wanted a streetcar line down University Ave. The biggest roadblock was a steep hill between the Hillcrest and North […]
Nine-Arch Bridge in Marshfield, Wisconsin. Photo taken by JR Manning
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Headlines:
Son Severa Aqueduct Before its Demolition. Photo courtesy of Google
German Retired Couple Destroy Aqueduct on the Island of Mallorca
This podcast also includes information on the memorial service for Queen Elizabeth II. Her Royal Majesty died on September 8th at Balmoral Scotland and to pay respects and honor her for her 70 years as the Queen, the Chronicles went offline for ten days which ended on September 19th. The Chronicles has a closing logo that was designed in her memory. It will appear in all articles for the remainder of the year and also in the 2022 Bridgehunter Awards.
When picking bridge examples to discuss here, I make an effort to look all over the US. That’s partly to get some variety to the examples and partly to offset the natural tendency for a New Yorker to be extremely parochial. 491 more words
Parsley Bay Bridge Constructed in 1910, the cable suspension bridge over Parsley Bay connects both sides of the inlet while providing a great view of the beach and Sydney Harbour. Although originally built for practical reasons, it is now an attraction in itself, in addition to the lovely beach it overlooks. Getting There We walked […]
This is a blog about my project of visiting every bridge over the Genesee River and what I learned about the history, structure, and natural surroundings of each bridge.
The Bridgehunter's Chronicles 