The bridge is 408 meters long and weighed approximately 1,500 metric tons when built. Originally supported by four columns, two more were added in later years to support the weight of heavier rail cars.
Civil
YearAdded:
Image Credit:
Courtesy Flickr/Rafael Retamal (CC BY-SA 2.0)
Image Caption:
Viaducto del Malleco
Era_date_from:
1890
1994
In 1930, the U.S. Corps of Engineers was directed to complete an engineering survey of the Tennessee River to determine the feasibility of establishing complete river navigability. The resulting report recommended a series of nine main river dams and several tributary dams to allow for a minimum eight foot channel (standard for barge navigation) from Knoxville to Paducah.
YearAdded:
Image Credit:
Courtesy of U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Nashville District (CC BY-ND 2.0)
Image Caption:
Kentucky Dam
Era_date_from:
1944
1996
The United States Capitol is among the most symbolically important and architecturally impressive buildings in the nation. Construction of the original Capitol began in 1793, but it has been through several additions and alterations. Over its lifetime, the Capitol building has been built, burnt, rebuilt, extended, and restored.
YearAdded:
Image Credit:
Courtesy Flickr/Jiuguang Wang (CC BY-SA 2.0)
Image Caption:
U.S. Capitol
Era_date_from:
1793
1986
St. Louis State: MS Zip: Country: USA Website: http://www.asce.org/Project/Union-Station/ Creator: Link, Theodore , Pegram, George
In the early 1900s, Union Station was the hub of passenger railroad traffic in the central United States. It was one of the first stations to serve as a centralized terminal for multiple railroad lines. It originally served 22 rail lines; 13 from the east and nine from the west.
YearAdded:
Image Credit:
Courtesy Flickr/Ron Reiring (CC BY 2.0)
Image Caption:
Union Station
Era_date_from:
1894
1981
According to oral history, George Washington visited the canal diggings in 1792, and then again in 1794, while he was accompanying troops to suppress the Whiskey Rebellion in Western Pennsylvania.
YearAdded:
Image Credit:
Courtesy Flickr/Ospreye (CC BY 2.0)
Image Caption:
Union Canal Tunnel
Era_date_from:
1828
1970
This majestic viaduct was built during the golden age of railroading. It was at the western end of a major readjustment in grade and alignment of the Erie-Lackawanna Railroad, and had double tracks to carry the trains across the valley of Tunkhannock Creek. The Hallstead cutoff (between Scranton, Pennsylvania and Hallstead, New Jersey) reduced passenger travel time by 20 minutes, and freight travel time by over an hour.
YearAdded:
Image Credit:
Original Photo: Flickr/Jim Danvers (CC BY 2.0)
Image Caption:
Tunkhannock Viaduct
Era_date_from:
1915
1975
The design of the Bollman Truss Bridge-patented in 1852 and one of the first to use iron exclusively in all essential structural elements-was critical in the rapid expansion of American railroads in the 19th century. Replacing wooden bridges, which were cumbersome to build and vulnerable to decay, the Bollman Truss Bridge could be built relatively quickly and inexpensively, while providing the long-lasting qualities associated with metal. This allowed new rail lines to be built over long distances in a short period of time.
YearAdded:
Image Credit:
Courtesy Flickr/Andrew Bossi (CC BY-SA 2.0)
Image Caption:
Bollman Truss Bridge as it looks today, after the repairs done in 1934-84.
Era_date_from:
1869
1966
The Borden Base Line is a 39,009.73 feet (7.42 miles ) survey line through the State of Massachusetts. The line was the first project of its kind undertaken in America and its establishment was the key element for Massachusetts pioneering mandate to survey the entire state.
The challenge was to use trigonometrical principles, instead of astronomical observation alone, to provide greater accuracy in surveying large areas.
YearAdded:
Image Credit:
Public Domain (Copyright Exp.)
Image Caption:
An 1871 map of Massachusetts highlighting the Borden Base Line
Era_date_from:
1831
1981
The Triborough Bridge Project is a three-branched waterway crossing that connects Manhattan, the Bronx, and Queens at a junction of the East River and the Harlem River in New York City. The complex structure includes a suspension bridge from Wards Island to Queens, a vertical lift span from Randall's Island to Manhattan, a fixed span (designed to be convertible to a lift span) across the Bronx Kills, viaducts, and an innovative three-legged roadway interchange.
YearAdded:
Image Credit:
Public Domain (National Park Service)
Image Caption:
Triborough Bridge Project
Era_date_from:
1936
1986
Central Pacific Railroad served as the Western terminus of America's first transcontinental railroad, passing through the formidable Sierra Nevada Mountains. In all, 15 tunnels were blasted through solid granite.
Thousands of Chinese from Kwantung Province were recruited by Central Pacific Railroad Company and became known for their diligence and hard work. In the second year of construction, nine out of ten workers on the CPRR were Chinese.
YearAdded:
Image Credit:
Courtesy Flickr/Jim Bowen (CC BY 2.0)
Image Caption:
Central Pacific Railroad
Era_date_from:
1863
1968
Innovations
No image dominates the Midwestern landscape like the monolithic grain elevator, whose present shape and construction owe much to grain company operator Frank Peavy and architect-builder Charles Haglin.
Wanting to improve on the flammability and cost of traditional wood-cribbed…
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Water wheels have been used to power mills and pumps for centuries. However, the traditional water wheel was inefficient: water hitting a bucket would splash back against the next bucket, slowing the wheel. This is especially true when water is delivered to the buckets under very high pressure…
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The Pennsylvania Turnpike was the first American paved highway of the automobile era in which tolls alone were expected to pay all project costs. The 160-mile roadway, which cut an east-west path from Pittsburgh to the state capital of Harrisburg, was considered a revolutionary example of…
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Philadelphia City Hall was the largest masonry load-bearing wall building in the world at the time of its completion in 1901, stood as the tallest occupied building in the United States until 1909, and still is the largest city hall in the United States. The building covers 14.26 acres,…
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After an initial difficulty in attracting customers (who were used to getting their water from public pumps and private wells and cisterns), Philadelphia's waterworks soon couldn't keep up with demand. John Davis and Frederick Graff designed a complete remodeling of the system in 1811 so that it…
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Built to cross one of the steepest valleys along the Douro River, the Ponte Maria Pia was the first major work to emerge from the French firm of Gustav Eiffel and Company, establishing Eiffel as an important bridge designer and civil engineer of his day. Resting on a parabolic arch spanning 160…
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The Portland Observatory was built in 1807 by Captain Lemuel Moody to serve as a communication station for Portland Harbor. Portland Observatory was one of the earliest marine signal stations in the United States, and it is the last known to survive. The Observatory's location on Munjoy Hill…
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The Portland Head Light was the first lighthouse to be constructed in Maine and the first one completed and put into service by the Federal government under the Lighthouse Act of 1789, which moved to place all lighthouses under federal control. While work had begun on the lighthouse in 1787 by…
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These canals and locks are a part of the first extensive system of canal and river navigation works undertaken in the United States. The idea for the canal was proposed by George Washington, when, as an engineer, surveyor and military emissary for Virginia, he saw the need for a trade route west…
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A bridge across the Hudson at or near Poughkeepsie was planned starting in the early 1870s to primarily carry coal from the coalfields of northeastern Pennsylvania to New England. At the time there were no bridges between Albany and New York Harbor. Horatio Allen, soon to be President of the…
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The bridge is immense, not only in length and weight but in width. At 67 feet wide, it can accommodate two sets of railway tracks, two sets of streetcar tracks and two roadways.
It took three tries and cost 89 lives, but the city of Quebec was determined to compete with provincial rival…
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When opened in 1909, the Queensboro Bridge had the two longest steel cantilever spans in the world - 1,182 feet from Manhattan to Blackwell's Island and 984 feet from Blackwell's Island to Queens. These would remain the world's longest cantilever spans until the completion of the Quebec Bridge…
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Conceived in the early years of World War II as a plan to bury four fuel containers horizontally in a hillside at the U.S. Navy facility at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, the Red Hill Underground Fuel Storage Facility ultimately encompassed the design and construction of 20 vertical storage tanks - each…
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Alvord Lake Bridge, along with many of Ernest Ransome's reinforced concrete buildings, survived the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and several subsequent tremblers with no damage. Built in 1889 by Ernest L Ransome of New York, this reinforced concrete arch bridge in San Francisco's Golden Gate…
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The third bridge built on the same site to carry railroad tracks across the Susquehanna River just north of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, the Rockville Stone Arch Bridge, at 3,820 feet long and 52 feet wide, is believed to be the longest and widest stone-arch railroad bridge in the world. A central…
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Designed to connect the Shenandoah National Park in Virginia and the Great Smokey Mountains National Park in North Carolina, the Blue Ridge Parkway was planned to provide pleasant motoring and to conserve and interpret the unique natural and cultural resources of the Southern Highlands. It was…
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The Salginatobel Bridge, spanning the Salgina Valley ravine, is the earliest surviving three-hinged, hollow box arch bridge designed by Robert Maillart.
Maillart's 1901 invention of the concrete hollow box design became a major bridge building concept. In this design, the concrete arch…
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Ever since the Gold Rush days of the 1850s, San Francisco Bay area residents and businesses had lobbied for a bridge joining San Francisco and Oakland. Early studies indicated that the bridge was impractical and infeasible; but in October 1929, President Herbert Hoover (himself an engineer) and… Read More
The San Jacinto Monument commemorates the decisive 1836 battle near the banks of the Buffalo Bayou and the San Jacinto River that allowed Texas to win independence from Mexico. It is the world's tallest monument, rising 15 feet higher than the Washington Monument.
In 1936, Daughters and…
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Located at the northern tip of Michigan where Lake Superior, Lake Michigan, and Lake Huron join together, the Sault Ste. Marie Hydroelectric Power Complex was built to harness the hydroelectric potential of the 20-foot falls at the headwaters of the St. Marys (sic) River, the sole outlet of…
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