Skip to main content

Aerial Lift Bridge - Duluth, Minnesota


The Aerial Lift Bridge is one of Duluth's most famous and well known landmarks.   The 115 year old vertical lift bridge spans across the Duluth Ship Canal and connects the mainland with Minnesota Point.
The Aerial Lift Ferry in 1908 (Library of Congress)

Overall, the superstructure of the bridge has remained the same from when it opened in 1905.  However, the original bridge used a gondola to carry passengers, freight, wagons, and even cars over the canal.  Called the Aerial Transfer Bridge or Aerial Ferry Bridge, the gondola like car was suspended over the bridge via cables from the top truss structure.  The crossing took about a minute.
Some detail of the decorative iron work on the bridge.

As the popularity of automobiles grew, the gondola ferry system of the bridge grew obsolete.   In 1929, a bridge deck was built to carry automobiles and allow pedestrians to cross while the top span was lifted higher in order to allow large ships through the canal.  When fully raised, the roadway span of the bridge is lifted 135 feet.   The bridge span's length is 390 feet.

The bridge was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1973 and has been rehabilitated four times since 1986. The bridge is lifted on average 26 times a day.

Capturing the bridge while in operation is an amazing sight, and I was lucky to witness it in operation around sunrise on an August morning in 2006.  The slow and deliberate rise of the main span, followed with the loud blows of ship horns, and the amazing size of a Lake Superior bound freighter is impressive.
All photos taken by post author - August 2006 unless otherwise noted.

Sources & Links:

Where To Find It:
 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

I-40 rockslide uncovers old debates on highway

The Asheville Citizen-Times continues to do a great job covering all the angles of the Interstate 40 Haywood County rock slide. An article in Sunday's edition provides a strong historical perspective on how the Pigeon River routing of Interstate 40 came about. And perhaps most strikingly, in an article that ran just prior to the highway's opening in the fall of 1968, how engineers from both Tennessee and North Carolina warned "...that slides would probably be a major problem along the route for many years." On February 12, 1969, not long after the Interstate opened, the first rock slide that would close I-40 occurred. Like many other Interstates within North Carolina, Interstate 40 through the mountains has a history prior to formation of the Interstate Highway System and was also a heated political battle between local communities. The discussion for a road that would eventually become Interstate 40 dates back to the 1940's as the idea for interregional high

Former California State Route 41 past Bates Station

When California State Route 41 was commissioned during August 1934 it was aligned along the then existing Fresno-Yosemite Road north of the San Joaquin River.  Within the Sierra Nevada foothills of Madera County, the original highway alignment ran past Bates Station via what is now Madera County Road 209, part of eastern Road 406 and Road 207.   Bates Station was a stage station plotted during the early 1880s at what was the intersection of the Coarsegold Road and Stockton-Los Angeles Road.   The modern alignment bypassing Bates Station to the east would be reopened to traffic during late 1939.   Part 1; the history of California State Route 41 past Bates Station Bates Station was featured as one of the many 1875-1899 Madera County era towns in the May 21, 1968, Madera Tribune .  Post Office Service at Bates Station is noted to have been established on November 23, 1883 and ran continuously until October 31, 1903.  The postal name was sourced from Bates Station owner/operator George Ba

Mines Road

Mines Road is an approximately twenty-eight-mile highway located in the rural parts of the Diablo Range east of the San Francisco Bay Area.  Mines Road begins in San Antonio Valley in Santa Clara County and terminates at Tesla Road near Livermore of Alameda County.  The highway essentially is a modern overlay of the 1840s Mexican haul trail up Arroyo Mocho known as La Vereda del Monte.  The modern corridor of Mines Road took shape in the early twentieth century following development of San Antonio Valley amid a magnesite mining boom.  Part 1; the history of Mines Road Modern Mines Road partially overlays the historic corridor used by La Vereda del Monte (Mountain Trail).  La Vereda del Monte was part of a remote overland route through the Diablo Range primarily used to drive cattle from Alta California to Sonora.  The trail was most heavily used during the latter days of Alta California during the 1840s. La Vereda del Monte originated at Point of Timber between modern day Byron and Bre