Skip to main content

Caledonia Bridge - Caledonia, Ontario

Image
By

The Caledonia Bridge, also known as the Argyle Street Bridge, is the longest rainbow arch bridge in the Province of Ontario. Spanning 700 feet across, the Caledonia Bridge includes an impressive nine arches. Opened to traffic on November 19, 1927, the bridge crosses the scenic Grand River in the Haldimand County town of Caledonia.  Caledonia Bridge was the first, and is now the only nine span bridge in Canada. The arches along the bridge tower over most passing vehicles. King's Highway 6 also once crossed this bridge, before the Caledonia Bypass was opened in 1982.

The site where the current Caledonia Bridge is located has a long history of being the location of a noteworthy bridge. In fact, the existing bridge replaced a large, six arch Whipple Arch truss bridge that was built in 1875 along the old Plank Road between Port Dover and Hamilton. Each of those spans were 105 feet (32 meters) in length. A large brick toll keepers residence was also built near the north end of this bridge. The Caledonia Toll House was also completed in 1875. Built by the Caledonia Town Council, the toll house was constructed to collect tolls to cross the Grand River using Caledonia's old Iron Bridge. While tolls were no longer collected at this bridge after 1890, the toll house is now a private residence, remaining true to its Gothic Victorian architecture. At least one portion of the 1875 bridge in Caledonia collapsed due to overloading by a truck in 1925, which prompted interest in constructing a new bridge, leading to construction of the existing rainbow arch bridge.

Built by the Randolph MacDonald Company of Toronto, Ontario, the bridge was completed in a record 140 working days, a feat both in 1927 and today as well. The existing nine span concrete arch bridge that carries Argyle Street across the Grand River in Caledonia is considered to be a heritage bridge and structure. However, time has taken its toll and the bridge is now posted with weight restrictions for crossing vehicles. This also means that the Caledonia Bridge is not long for this world, as there is a project study in place as of 2019 in order to replace the historic nine arched rainbow arch bridge with a steel arch bridge.

I visited the Caledonia Bridge on two occasions, in 2005 and 2010. This heritage bridge (in Ontario, they use the term heritage instead of historic for these sorts of sites) is truly unique and worth visiting if you happen to be in the area. Here are some photos that I have took of the bridge and its surroundings.










How to Get There:



Sources and Links:
Caledonia Bridge - HistoricBridges.org
Old Highway 6, Caledonia - Alps' Roads
The King's Highway 6 - TheKingsHighway.ca
Heritage and Culture - Caledonia Ontario
The Toll House - Canada's Historic Places
Replacement of the Argyle Street Grand River Bridge in Caledonia - Argyle Street Bridge Replacement
Labels:
Location: Argyle St N, Haldimand, ON, Canada

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Chowchilla Mountain Road to Yosemite National Park

By
Chowchilla Mountain Road of Mariposa County is one of the oldest roadways servicing Yosemite National Park.  As presently configured this fourteen-mile highway begins at California State Route 49 near Elliot Corner and terminates at the Wawona Road in Yosemite National Park.  Chowchilla Mountain Road was constructed as a franchise toll road over Battalion Pass circa 1869-1870.  The highway was built at behest of Galen Clark to connect the town of Mariposa to his property near the South Fork Merced River at what is now Wawona.   In late 1874 the highway along with Clark’s Station would be purchased by the Washburn Brothers.  The Washburn Brothers would continue to toll Chowchilla Mountain Road as part of their Yosemite Stage Route lines.  The highway would ultimately become a Mariposa County public highway in 1917.  Mariposa would later be more directly linked with Yosemite Valley in 1926 following the completion of the Yosemite All-Year Highwa...
2 comments
Read more

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...
Post a Comment
Read more

Angus L. Macdonald Bridge

By
At 1.3 kilometers (or about 0.84 miles) in length, the Angus L. Macdonald Bridge is one of two bridges crossing over the Halifax Harbour between Halifax, Nova Scotia and Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, with the other bridge being the A. Murray Mackay Bridge . Opened in 1955 and named after former Nova Scotia Premier and Canadian Minister of Defense for Naval Services Angus L. Macdonald, the Macdonald Bridge was the first bridge that crossed Halifax Harbour that was opened to traffic. The Macdonald Bridge was also the subject of the Big Lift, which was only the second time in history that the span of a suspension bridge were replaced while the bridge was open to traffic. Planning began in 2010 for the Big Lift, while construction took place between 2015 and 2017. Similar work occurred on the Lion's Gate Bridge in Vancouver, British Columbia before the project took place on the Macdonald Bridge. At this time, much of the bridge infrastructure is new, leaving only the towers, main cables and...
1 comment
Read more