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On completion, the bridge was the tallest and longest railroad bridge in the world and was advertised as the "Eighth Wonder of the World". The bridge was designed to support a load of 266 short tons (241 t), and was estimated to cost between $167,000 and $275,000. The tallest tower had a base that was 193 feet (59 m) wide. The bridge's 110 sandstone masonry piers were quarried from the hillside used for the foundation of the bridge. Because of the design of these columns, it was often mistakenly believed that the bridge had been built out of wooden poles. The bridge was designed by the engineer Octave Chanute and was built by the Phoenix Iron Works, which specialized in producing patented, hollow iron tubes called "Phoenix columns". The process was then repeated across all 20 towers. The reason for the short construction time was that scaffolding was not used in the bridge's construction instead a gin pole was used to build the first tower, then a traveling crane was built atop it and used in building the second tower. The first Kinzua Bridge was built by a crew of 40 from 1,552 short tons (1,408 t) of wrought iron in just 94 working days, between May 10 and August 29, 1882. When built, the bridge was larger than any ever attempted and over twice as large as the largest similar structure at the time, the Portage Bridge over the Genesee River in western New York. The only other alternative would have been to lay an additional 8 miles (13 km) of track over rough terrain. The fastest way to do so was to build a bridge across the Kinzua Valley. Kane, president of the New York, Lake Erie and Western Railway (NYLE&W), was faced with the challenge of building a branch line off the main line in Pennsylvania, from Bradford south to the coalfields in Elk County. The original Kinzua Bridge, before its reconstruction in 1900 Route 6 near the borough of Mount Jewett, Pennsylvania. The ruins of the Kinzua Bridge are in Kinzua Bridge State Park off U.S. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1977 and as a National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark by the American Society of Civil Engineers in 1982. Corroded anchor bolts holding the bridge to its foundations failed, contributing to the collapse.īefore its collapse, the Kinzua Bridge was ranked as the fourth-tallest railway bridge in the United States. Restoration of the bridge began in 2002, but before it was finished a tornado struck the bridge in 2003, causing a large portion of the bridge to collapse. It stayed in commercial service until 1959, when it was sold to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in 1963 to become the centerpiece of a state park.
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In 1900, the bridge was dismantled and simultaneously rebuilt out of steel to allow it to accommodate heavier trains. Most of its structure collapsed during a tornado in July 2003.īilled as the " Eighth Wonder of the World", the wrought iron original 1882 structure held the record for the tallest railroad bridge in the world for two years. The bridge was 301 feet (92 m) tall and 2,052 feet (625 m) long. The Kinzua Bridge or the Kinzua Viaduct ( / ˈ k ɪ n z uː/, /- z uː ə/) was a railroad trestle that spanned Kinzua Creek in McKean County in the U.S.