Skip to main content

The National Road - Pennsylvania - Brownsville and Dunlap's Creek Bridge

Image
By
From Searights Toll House, the National Road continues west towards the Monongahela River town of Brownsville.  Brownsville for many decades was a transportation and industry center.  Brownsville was the home to steamboat construction and a rail hub for the steel industry.  Like many cities and town's in what is now known as the Rust Belt, Brownsville saw a steady and dramatic population decline after the Second World War.  Brownsville's population peaked at just over 8,000 residents in 1940 to nearly a quarter of that today.  (The estimated 2016 population is 2,270.)

The vacant storefronts along Market Street in Downtown Brownsville.  (Brian Reynolds, 2002)
 The heart of Downtown Brownsville is known as "The Neck", and for years this flat stretch of land between the Intercounty and Lane Bane Bridges along Market Street was home to many professional businesses, banks, stores and shops, and more.  However, "The Neck" today is a skeleton of what it once was.  Many of the historic buildings with intricate architectural detail are boarded up and have been empty for many years.  Over the years, many proposals have come and gone to revitalize the city.  From riverboat gambling to pushing for the completion of the Mon-Fayette Expressway, Brownsville's residents and leaders hope to return the city to its former glory.

Brian Reynolds, 2002
Dunlap's Creek Bridge:


Older images of Dunlap's Creek Bridge (Courtesy of Bruce Cridlebaugh)
At the bottom of "The Neck" sits, the first and oldest cast iron bridge built in the United States.  Dedicated on July 4, 1839, this 80 foot bridge over Dunlap's Creek was built and designed by Captain Richard Delafield of the US Army Corps of Engineers.  Built by the US Government to stabilize the crossing that had seen three bridges destroyed since 1801, the bridge's cost was $39,811.63. (1)  This was one of the last major projects undertaken by the federal government before turning over control of the National Road to the states.  The bridge consists of "five parallel arches, each consisting of nine segments." (1)  Later as the canal and then the rail eras began to shape the nation, the bridge would sit virtually unused to heavy traffic until the automobile age.

Detail of the iron arch superstructure that supports the span. (Bruce Cridlebaugh)
Over the bridge's nearly 200 year old history, there have been many changes within Brownsville and the structures in its immediate vicinity.  As Brownsville grew with the spread of the coal and steel industries, many structures were built over Dunlap's Creek and were tied into the bridge.  This would make the bridge appear much shorter in length than it actually is.   In addition, the Dunlap's Creek Bridge has received numerous recognition and awards.  Beginning with its dedication as a National Historic Landmark in 1920, this old bridge has accumulated five historical and engineering awards.  Plaques have been placed on the very detailed railings touting the structure's accomplishments.

A great example of how some of the buildings along "The Neck" surround the bridge. (Bruce Cridlebaugh)
Site Navigation:
Sources & Links:
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Paper Highways: The Unbuilt New Orleans Bypass (Proposed I-410)

By
  There are many examples around the United States of proposed freeway corridors in urban areas that never saw the light of day for one reason or another. They all fall somewhere in between the little-known and the infamous and from the mundane to the spectacular. One of the more obscure and interesting examples of such a project is the short-lived idea to construct a southern beltway for the New Orleans metropolitan area in the 1960s and 70s. Greater New Orleans and its surrounding area grew rapidly in the years after World War II, as suburban sprawl encroached on the historically rural downriver parishes around the city. In response to the development of the region’s Westbank and the emergence of communities in St. Charles and St. John the Baptist Parishes as viable suburban communities during this period, regional planners began to consider concepts for new infrastructure projects to serve this growing population.  The idea for a circular freeway around the southern perimeter of t
Post a Comment
Read more

Hernando de Soto Bridge (Memphis, TN)

By
The newest of the bridges that span the lower Mississippi River at Memphis, the Hernando de Soto Bridge was completed in 1973 and carries Interstate 40 between downtown Memphis and West Memphis, AR. The bridge’s signature M-shaped superstructure makes it an instantly recognizable landmark in the city and one of the most visually unique bridges on the Mississippi River. As early as 1953, Memphis city planners recommended the construction of a second highway bridge across the Mississippi River to connect the city with West Memphis, AR. The Memphis & Arkansas Bridge had been completed only four years earlier a couple miles downriver from downtown, however it was expected that long-term growth in the metro area would warrant the construction of an additional bridge, the fourth crossing of the Mississippi River to be built at Memphis, in the not-too-distant future. Unlike the previous three Mississippi River bridges to be built the city, the location chosen for this bridge was about two
1 comment
Read more

Memphis & Arkansas Bridge (Memphis, TN)

By
  Like the expansion of the railroads the previous century, the modernization of the country’s highway infrastructure in the early and mid 20th Century required the construction of new landmark bridges along the lower Mississippi River (and nation-wide for that matter) that would facilitate the expected growth in overall traffic demand in ensuing decades. While this new movement had been anticipated to some extent in the Memphis area with the design of the Harahan Bridge, neither it nor its neighbor the older Frisco Bridge were capable of accommodating the sharp rise in the popularity and demand of the automobile as a mode of cross-river transportation during the Great Depression. As was the case 30 years prior, the solution in the 1940s was to construct a new bridge in the same general location as its predecessors, only this time the bridge would be the first built exclusively for vehicle traffic. This bridge, the Memphis & Arkansas Bridge, was completed in 1949 and was the third
Post a Comment
Read more