BRIDGES AND
TUNNELS OF
ALLEGHENY COUNTY,
PENNSYLVANIA
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HAER
Smithfield Street Bridge, Pittsburgh, PA
01 Cover Page
02 Foreword
03 Ferries
05 Monongahela
Bridge and
Fire
12 Masonry
17 Removal
of Old and
Erection of
New Bridge
18 Flooring
19 Ornamental
Towers and
Painting
22 Alterations
23 Footnotes
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Smithfield Street Bridge, Pittsburgh, PA Historic American Engineering Record PA-2 page 6
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John Roebling After the fire the old piers and abutments were repaired and on them the famous John A. Roebling constructed a new wire cable suspension bridge for a contract price of $55,000. Work was begun on the new structure in May, 1846, a short time after the fire. D. B. Steinman has given a full and colorful account in his biography of Roebling of the construction of this first of the famous engineer's highway bridges. (17) What was begun in Pittsburgh culminated in the 1860's in his final master work, the Brooklyn Bridge. John A . Roebling as a bridge engineer is so well known that any biographical data would seem almost redundant, but some account of his life is necessary here because of his importance in Pittsburgh pontine history. (18) He was born in MŸhlhausen, Germany, in 1806, received his engineering education at the Royal Polytechnic Institute in Berlin, and emigrated to America in 1831, settling at Saxonburg in Butler County, some twenty-five miles north of Pittsburgh. This town, which he established, became the chief focus of his early engineering career ad here he established his wire rope manufactory which was later moved to Trenton, New Jersey. His wire cables were first used on the inclined planes of the Portage Railroad in the mountains of Western Pennsylvania; his first important bridge was a suspension aqueduct which he constructed over the Allegheny River at Pittsburgh. (19) As the aqueduct was being completed the Monongahela Bridge burned and Roebling was almost immediately given the commission to construct the new one. As a result of the fame of these two structures, Roebling was now established as America's foremost bridge engineer and went on to design such famous structures as (another Pittsburgh work) the second Sixth Street Bridge over the Allegheny River (1858-60), the Niagara Railway Suspension Bridge (1851-55), the Cincinnati Bridge over the Ohio (1856-67) and finally the Brooklyn Bridge which he was never to see finished since he died as a result of an accident in 1869 when work on the bridge piers had just begun.
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Introduction Last modified on
30-Sep-99
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