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B. The Campaign for the Bridge, 1915-1928

The completion of the West End-North Side Bridge in December 1932 marked the culmination of a decade-long, county-wide, public works program in the Pittsburgh region that, in the minds of area businessman, secured the economic future of both the city and the region. Pittsburgh was not alone in exalting public works as a sound economic insurance policy. Pittsburgh joined Philadelphia, New York, Chicago, and other cities in a frenzy of road, tunnel, bridge, and public building construction. In the 1920s, Philadelphia rushed to complete its Benjamin Franklin Parkway, extended its Broad Street subway, and crowned its public works building program by constructing a new stadium as part of the city's role in hosting the Sesquicentennial. New York City surpassed every other city in the sheer magnitude of public works expenditures. During the 1920s, Parks Commissioner Robert Moses rammed plans for the new parks, roads, and playgrounds through the New York state and municipal bodies. (Scott 1969; Caro 1974:1-21; Bauman 1969:1-28).

Pittsburgh, however, never lagged far behind in the "race" for public works. Under the banner "Pittsburgh Forward" and shouting "Smoke and Soot Be Damned," Pittsburgh businessmen, civic leaders, and public officials determined to secure the city's position as an industrial giant and to accomplish that objective through public works and the promotion of physical growth. As during the 19th century, Pittsburgh boosters equated prosperity with untrammeled growth, and they identified improved transportation as the key to that growth. Throughout the 1920s, the Pittsburgh Chamber of Commerce pressed the county to float "People's Bond" issues to fund a bevy of transportation projects, including the building of the Ohio River Boulevard, the Saw Mill Run Boulevard, Allegheny River Boulevard, the Liberty Tunnels, the Liberty Bridge, the McKees Rocks Bridge and, finally, the West End-North Side Bridge (Greater Pittsburgh, October 25, 1926; Pittsburgh First, December 6, 1924).

In addition to elaborating a system of boulevards and beltways to conform Pittsburgh's traffic patterns to the needs of the automobile, local boaters sought to modernize the region's river system. Area businessmen and industrialists promoted a new canal system to connect the city with Lake Erie ports. Business leaders also pressed for the deepening of the river channels and for raising the area bridges in order to facilitate the use of large ships. Indeed, work underway in the 1920s to install new locks and deepen the channel in the Ohio River expanded the capacity of the Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, and Louisville river network, so that in 1925 the Ohio River carried close to 16,000,000 tons of goods (Pittsburgh First, July 10, 1926).

As much as modern roadways, bridges, and river improvements met the needs of business and industry, in the minds of 1920-style boosters, road and bridge improvements just as importantly served the growing population of motorists. The "good roads and bridges" movement promoted the plans of suburban businessmen and real estate developers anxious to expand the South Hills and North Hills as residential communities (Pittsburgh First, June 19, 1926; Pittsburgh First, October 2, 1926). Pittsburgh's suburban development proceeded at a feverish pace during the mid-1920s. From April 1924 to April 1925, total building construction in Pittsburgh increased by 17 percent and home building accounted for 47 percent of the new construction. One important locus of the new suburbanization lay in the city's South Hills section -- Mount Washington, Dormont, Bethel Park, Mount Lebanon, and Greentree.

Therefore, it is quite understandable that the cause of the West End-North Side Bridge would be championed by a person with business and sentimental interests in both the North Side and South Hills. Called the "Father of the West End-North Side Bridge," Henry Tranter (1865-1940) headed the firm of Tranter Manufacturing, located at 105 Fort Pitt Boulevard. The Tranter manufacturing plant sat on Water Street on the North Side and was "one of the best known machine shops and machine jobbers in the Pittsburgh area," according to Sylvester K. Stevens (Stevens 1969:1940-1949; Polk 1932). The Tranter firm produced mill, mine, and factory equipment, including pumps, boilers, engines, and hoists. Tranter's principal civil interest lay in the development of modern highway arteries and bridges. From 1915 until 1935, he chaired the Pittsburgh Chamber of Commerce's Highways and Bridges Committee. He also served on the Pittsburgh City Transit Commission. Although Tranter's main business concerns were located in the central city and on the North Side and, as an officer of the West End Savings and Trust Company and a director of the Security Savings and Loan of the West End, he had a strong interest in the future of the western section of the city. Moreover, as a lifelong resident of Greentree Borough -- his family had settled in the area in colonial times -- Tranter understandably had a proprietary interest in promoting the growth and development of his ancestral domain (Stevens 1969:1940-1949).

In a 1912 presentation before the West End Board of Trade, Tranter had urged the construction of a bridge crossing, connecting West End and North Side. Since 1880 or earlier, only a ferry service linked the two communities (Post Gazette, December 2, 1932; Hopkins 1890). In the mid-1920s, under the leadership of Tranter and J. G. Shaw, a North Side orator and historian, West End and North Side businessmen joined South Hills merchants and developers in promoting the West End-North Side Bridge (Herbertson 1970).

In 1923, Allegheny County blasted a tunnel through Mount Washington for the Liberty Tunnels and, in 1928, opened a high level bridge "to connect the north entrance of the tunnel directly with one of Pittsburgh's main automobile arteries at the fringe of the downtown section" (Campbell 1926:23). In 1926, the Pittsburgh Chamber of Commerce hailed the tunnel and the proposed Liberty Bridge project for opening up a section of the city "splendidly adapted for homes." Because of the tunnel, "homes and stores are springing up over a large area (of the South Hills)," observed the Chamber of Commerce in 1926, and "eventually . . . the territory will become the best residence section of Pittsburgh" (Campbell 1926:23).

Tranter's fervent belief that a bridge connection would bind the West End, North Side, and South Hills in a marriage of prosperity drove the campaign for the West End-North Side Bridge. After his 1912 speech, Tranter chaired the committee that was formed to urge the bridge's construction. Between 1912 and 1928, Tranter, the Pittsburgh Chamber of Commerce, and the South Hills and North Borough Highway Association tied the West End Bridge project to another proposal for the building of the Saw Mill Run Boulevard. The tempo of agitation for the two projects intensified by the mid-1920s. In 1926, Tranter, who had also pressed for the construction of Banksville Road, the Perry Highway, and the Manchester Bridge, observed that:

"North Side . . . has long been developed and is a great factor in the industrial and business affairs of Pittsburgh. The southwest side has been developing by leaps and bounds during late years. For lack of transportation facilities they are widely separated and both work at a great disadvantage by that fact. The West End crossing bridge would bring them so closely together that their interest would be practically one (Pittsburgh First, June 19, 1926)."

According to Tranter, the West End-North Side Bridge would have a salutary effort on the regional economy and, with the Saw Mill Run Boulevard project, "would do more toward relieving the congested condition of the downtown district of the city than anything else before the people at the present time" (Greater Pittsburgh, October 2, 1926).

During the second half of the 1920s, Allegheny County sustained a vigorous pace of public works construction. Between 1924 and 1927, seven large county bridges were completed, spanning the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers alone (Engineering Society of Western Pennsylvania 1930:13). While studies continued for a bridge crossing at the confluence of the three rivers, the county commissioners kept the public works bandwagon rolling and, in 1928, approved a whopping $43,680,000 "People's Bond Issue" for public works. The package of public works, funded by the bond issue, represented the fulfillment of Tranter's dream (Civic Club Minutes, June 1928). The approved projects included roads, bridges, and public buildings, among them the Saw Mill Run Boulevard, the McKees Rocks Bridge, the Allegheny River Boulevard, the Tenth Street Bridge rebuilding, and the West End-North Side Bridge. In addition, $2,550,000 was earmarked for the erection of a new county office building at Diamond and Ross streets, and $1,500,000 was budgeted for the Allegheny County Airport (Allegheny County Controller's Annual Report 1928:286-287). By January 1, 1930, the West End-North Side Bridge became one of 39 county bridges either under construction or awaiting action (Allegheny County Controller's Annual Report, December 31, 1930).

The West End-North Side Bridge project was part of the urban modernization process experienced by cities nationally in the 1920s. Like New York's parkways, Chicago's beltways, and Philadelphia's Benjamin Franklin Parkway, it was part of a concerted effort to impose efficient traffic patterns on the gritty industrial city and to fit the city to function effectively in the automobile age. Clearly, the West End-North Side Bridge was a vital component in the Pittsburgh planner's scheme for an Inter-District Traffic Circuit that involved the Liberty Bridge, the Liberty Tunnels, the Saw Mill Run Boulevard, and Western Avenue on North Side. Undoubtedly, on a less technical level, the bridge fulfilled Tranter's dream of wedding the economies of North Side, West End, and South Hills (Pittsburgh First, June 19, 1926; Foster, 1979; Tarr, 1978).

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