Skip to main content

Rosemont Raven Rock Bridge over Lockatong Creek



Located in Delaware Township, New Jersey, just outside of Stockton, is the Rosemont-Raven Rock Bridge, which spans 127 feet over Lockatong Creek. The Rosemont-Raven Rock Bridge has different names, such as Raven Rock Bridge and Lockatong Bridge, but I'm going with Rosemont-Raven Rock Bridge, as listed on the historical marker located next to the bridge itself. Built in 1878 at a cost of $2,800 of both cast iron and wrought iron, it is one of the earliest iron Pratt through truss bridges with phoenix columns in the United States.

This extremely rare and beautiful bridge ranks is a great example of early bridge design in New Jersey. It was built by the Lambertville Iron Works of Lambertville, New Jersey, which was a local company responsible for constructing bridges throughout Hunterdon County during the last quarter of the 19th century and run by William Cowin. The bottom lateral bracing on the bridge joins to a center ring, much like the Clinton, New Jersey bridge built in 1870, which was also constructed by the Lambertville Iron Works. But what makes the Rosemont-Raven Rock Bridge noteworthy in a historical sense is that it is a significant example of a bridge using rare Phoenix columns. The Phoenix columns are present on the vertical members and it is an extremely early example of a pin-connected Pratt through truss, having been built at a time when the bowstring truss was still a frequently selected form of metal bridge. The Rosemont-Raven Rock Bridge is a very beautiful bridge and includes a highly decorative builder plaque and decorative cast iron knee bracing at the portals, along with attractive lattice railings. In addition, the bridge includes decorative finials on top of each panel and connection point.

Today, Hunterdon County owns the classic bridge over Lockatong Creek and it was restored in 2014 at a cost of more than $2.1 million. As happenstance would be, I stumbled upon this bridge in January 2017 during a drive up the Delaware River area in New Jersey. So naturally, I had to stop and take a few photos.









How to Get There:


Sources and Links:
Raven Rock Bridge - HistoricBridges.org
Raven Rock Rosemont Road Bridge - Bridgehunter
Raven Rock Road Bridge - National Park Service
Bridge on Rosemont-Raven Rock Road opens with a ceremony - NJ.com
The Lockatong Bridge over Raven Rock Road, part one - Goodspeed Histories
The Lockatong Bridge over Raven Rock Road, part two - Goodspeed Histories
The Bridges of New Jersey - Stephen M. Richman (via Google Books)

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Old River Lock & Control Structure (Lettsworth, LA)

  The Old River Control Structure (ORCS) and its connecting satellite facilities combine to form one of the most impressive flood control complexes in North America. Located along the west bank of the Mississippi River near the confluence with the Red River and Atchafalaya River nearby, this structure system was fundamentally made possible by the Flood Control Act of 1928 that was passed by the United States Congress in the aftermath of the Great Mississippi River Flood of 1927 however a second, less obvious motivation influenced the construction here. The Mississippi River’s channel has gradually elongated and meandered in the area over the centuries, creating new oxbows and sandbars that made navigation of the river challenging and time-consuming through the steamboat era of the 1800s. This treacherous area of the river known as “Turnbull’s Bend” was where the mouth of the Red River was located that the upriver end of the bend and the Atchafalaya River, then effectively an outflow

Memphis & Arkansas Bridge (Memphis, TN)

  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

California State Route 203 the proposed Minaret Summit Highway

California State Route 203 is an approximately nine-mile State Highway located near Mammoth Lakes in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of Mono County.  California State Route 203 as presently configured begins at US Route 395, passes through Mammoth Lakes and terminates at the Madera County line at Minaret Summit.  What is now California State Route 203 was added to the State Highway System in 1933 as Legislative Route Number 112.  The original Mammoth Lakes State Highway ended at Lake Mary near the site of Old Mammoth and was renumbered to California State Route 203 in 1964.  The modern alignment of the highway to Minaret Summit was adopted during 1967.   The corridor of Minaret Summit and Mammoth Pass have been subject to numerous proposed Trans-Sierra Highways.  The first corridor was proposed over Mammoth Pass following a Southern Pacific Railroad survey in 1901.  In 1931 a corridor between the Minarets Wilderness and High Sierra Peaks Wilderness was reserved by the Forest Service for po