Roebling Suspension Bridge

At a glance

Overview

The John A. Roebling Suspension Bridge carries Kentucky Route 17 across the Ohio River between Cincinnati and Covington, Kentucky. The Covington and Cincinnati Bridge Company got its Kentucky charter in 1846, but Ohio lawmakers, pressed by ferry and steamboat interests and by fears that a bridge would help enslaved people escape, held it back for years and hemmed it in with conditions. Designed by John A. Roebling and finished under his son Washington, the bridge was begun in September 1856, stalled by the Panic of 1857 and the Civil War, and opened to walkers on December 1, 1866 and to all traffic on January 1, 1867, when its 1,057-foot main span was the longest in the world. Rebuilt with a second pair of cables and a steel truss between 1895 and 1899, it was the only highway crossing left open on the Ohio from Steubenville to Cairo during the 1937 flood. Kentucky bought it in 1953, ended tolls in 1963 and renamed it for its designer in 1983; it is a National Historic Landmark and still carries cars under an 11-ton weight limit.

The name

Roebling himself always called it the Ohio River Bridge. Kentucky used the 1983 centennial of Roebling's Brooklyn Bridge to rename it the John A. Roebling Suspension Bridge. As the region's only bridge across the Ohio it was first known as the 'Gateway to the South,' and it has also been called 'the singing bridge,' for the hum vehicles make on its metal deck grates. (source)

Native American history

No Native village, mound, trail crossing or other site is recorded at the bridge's own footings in the sources consulted. The wider riverfront was named for its Native-era geography: the first American settlement here, Losantiville, landed in December 1788 opposite the mouth of the Licking River, and the name was surveyor John Filson's coinage for 'the city opposite the mouth' of that river. Before European contact, southwest Ohio's Ohio River valley was home to the Fort Ancient culture (about 900 to 1600 CE), whose people farmed large towns and are thought by historians to include ancestors of the Shawnee; Miami, Lenape and other nations also used the region in the historic period. In the Treaty of Fort Finney, signed with Shawnee leaders on January 31, 1786 at the mouth of the Great Miami west of today's Cincinnati, the United States took cessions of parts of the Ohio country, a treaty other Shawnee leaders renounced; the Northwest Indian War followed, and after the 1794 Battle of Fallen Timbers the nations signed away most of their Ohio land in the Treaty of Greenville. The Cincinnati waterfront was part of John Cleves Symmes's 1788 Miami Purchase from Congress.

• Treaty of Fort Finney (Treaty at the Mouth of the Great Miami): treaty, Fort Finney, mouth of the Great Miami River, west of Cincinnati; ceded parts of the Ohio country to the United States, January 31, 1786
• Symmes (Miami) Purchase: other, Land between the Great and Little Miami rivers north of the Ohio, including the Cincinnati riverfront, 1788

Stories

Pumps made of pine planks

The Cincinnati tower nearly failed before it rose above ground. In the fall of 1856 the foundation pit, dug into loose fill along the riverfront, drained the wells on the rising ground behind the city, and river water poured in faster than steam pumps could lift it. Patent rotary pumps failed, the city's steamboat pumps were too small, and there was no time to order large pumps from the East while the November rains were raising the river. Roebling sent for three-inch pine planks, sketched what he wanted for the carpenters, and within 48 hours had four large square wooden pumps. He powered them by chain from an engine on the tugboat Champion No. 1, owned by bridge trustee Amos Shinkle, and they lifted forty gallons of mud and water at each stroke. The pit was cleared, and Roebling chose to set the tower on the compact gravel bed rather than dig twelve more feet to rock. (source)

A bridge built around slavery law

Kentucky chartered the bridge company in 1846, but most of the resistance came from Ohio, where ferry and steamboat owners feared for their trade and others feared the bridge would help enslaved people escape. Ohio's charter, granted in 1849, forbade enslaved people to cross without their owners' permission and made the company answerable in court if any escaped across it. An 1850 amendment barred the bridge from joining Cincinnati directly at Vine, Race, Elm or Plum streets; historian Paul Tenkotte of Northern Kentucky University ties that restriction to the legal exposure over escapes. That is why the bridge never lined up with Vine Street, though Covington had aligned its own streets with Cincinnati's as early as 1815. Roebling later lamented the lost vista, which he said could have made 'the finest and most magnificent avenues on this continent.' (source)

The war that finished the bridge

By 1860 the towers stood unfinished in the river and the company could not sell its stock. In September 1862 Confederate forces under Gen. Kirby Smith invaded Kentucky and threatened Cincinnati; Union Gen. Lew Wallace fortified the northern Kentucky hills, and a pontoon bridge of coal barges was thrown across the Ohio to move troops and supplies. Engravings of that floating bridge show the stubs of Roebling's towers jutting out of the water beside it. The scare made the case for a permanent crossing: new stock sold, the two legislatures lowered the required clearance, and Roebling was back at work by the spring of 1863. (source)

Opening weekend, and a disputed crowd

The bridge opened to walkers on Saturday, December 1, 1866, signaled by two brass 12-pounders from the Newport Barracks fired at the foot of Greenup Street. The Cincinnati Commercial-Gazette gave it one paragraph, reporting that 'fully 20,000' people crossed between sunrise and sunset. The Roebling Bridge Society's history gives much larger figures: 46,000 on Saturday and 120,000 on Sunday. A month later the bridge opened to vehicles. A horse and buggy paid 15 cents, three horses and a carriage 25 cents, and a pedestrian one cent. (source)

The only crossing left open in 1937

The Ohio River had already tested the bridge in 1884, when a 71-foot flood put the Ohio approach underwater and the company rowed pedestrians to Walnut Street in skiffs. In the great flood of January 1937 the river crested at 79.99 feet. Workers built a causeway of sandbags, gravel and timber in Covington, running diagonally from the bridge approach to Greenup Street, to keep a dry path onto the span. For the length of the flood it was the only highway crossing still open on more than 800 miles of river, from Steubenville, Ohio to Cairo, Illinois. (source)

Visitors from Japan

In 1963 a group of Japanese bridge builders touring the United States stopped in Cincinnati. Local officials assumed they had come to see the new Brent Spence Bridge on Interstate 75. They had, but their main reason for the stop was the old Suspension Bridge, which Japanese engineering textbooks described as the finest of its type in the world. The account comes from a booklet published for the bridge's 1966 centennial and retold by the Cincinnati Enquirer in 2011. (source)

Timeline

• 1815: Covington laid out its north-south streets to line up with those of downtown Cincinnati, in hope of a future bridge. (source)
• 1839: In April, businessmen from Lexington, Covington, Georgetown and elsewhere traveled to Cincinnati to argue for an Ohio River bridge; Cincinnatians feared it would hinder river trade. (source)
• 1846: The Kentucky legislature chartered the Covington and Cincinnati Bridge Company; Ohio, pressed by ferry and steamboat operators, withheld approval. (source)
• 1846: John A. Roebling, asked to plan the bridge, published a 36-page report answering the steamboat interests' objections; still no Ohio charter was granted. (source)
• 1849: Ohio granted a charter only after chartering a bridge at Wheeling, requiring no piers in the river and a span of at least 1,400 feet. (source)
• 1850: Ohio lawmakers amended the charter to forbid the bridge from linking directly with Vine, Race, Elm and Plum streets, which is why it never joined Vine Street to Covington's Scott Street. (source)
• 1854: A suspension bridge over the Licking River between Covington and Newport collapsed, deepening doubts about the Ohio River project. (source)
• 1856: Covington businessman Amos Shinkle joined the bridge company's board; construction began in September with the foundations for the Ohio tower. (source)
• 1856: In November, with river water flooding the Cincinnati tower pit, Roebling had four wooden pumps built from pine planks in 48 hours and ran them off Shinkle's tugboat Champion No. 1. (source)
• 1858: With both towers under construction, work halted because money dried up after the Panic of 1857. (source)
• 1862: In September, as Confederate forces under Gen. Kirby Smith threatened Cincinnati, Union troops crossed the river on a pontoon bridge of coal barges beside the unfinished tower stubs. (source)
• 1863: By spring the two legislatures had lowered the required clearance, new stock was sold, and Roebling returned to restart work on the towers and anchorages. (source)
• 1865: Washington Roebling, just discharged from the Union army as a colonel, joined his father as assistant chief engineer; cable spinning with English wrought-iron wire began in November. (source)
• 1866: On June 23 the last wire was carried across, completing 10,360 wires bundled into two cables of 5,180 wires each. (source)
• 1866: On December 1 the bridge opened to pedestrians, marked by a cannon salute fired by a gun squad from the Newport Barracks. (source)
• 1867: On January 1 the bridge formally opened to all traffic, earlier than planned because river ice had stopped the ferries; finishing work ran until late June. (source)
• 1884: A record flood reached 71 feet and put the Ohio approach at Front Street underwater; the company ran skiffs between the bridge and Walnut Street. (source)
• 1891: Moisture damage was found in the southeast anchorage, and engineer Gustave Bouscaren fitted reinforcing collars with friction clamps to the cables. (source)
• 1895: Wilhelm Hildenbrand, advised by Washington Roebling, began a reconstruction that added two steel cables, a steel truss and a wider floor; it was finished in 1899. (source)
• 1901: Electric lighting was installed on the bridge. (source)
• 1918: After the 1913 flood swamped the approach, the bridge company completed an extension of the Ohio approach to Third Street. (source)
• 1920s: Ramps were built from the north end of the bridge into the Dixie Terminal at Fourth and Walnut, giving Covington streetcars a grade-separated route into downtown. (source)
• 1937: The river crested at 79.99 feet; with a causeway of sandbags, gravel and timber in Covington, the bridge stayed open as the only highway crossing between Steubenville and Cairo, Illinois. (source)
• 1953: The Commonwealth of Kentucky bought the bridge from the private bridge company for $4.23 million. (source)
• 1963: Toll collection ended when the Brent Spence Bridge opened downstream on Interstate 75. (source)
• 1975: The bridge was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on May 15 and designated a National Historic Landmark. (source)
• 1976: For the national Bicentennial the bridge, then green, was repainted blue, and flags began flying continuously from the tower poles. (source)
• 1983: In June the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet officially renamed the structure for John A. Roebling. (source)
• 1984: In September a string of decorative lights along the main cables was switched on for the first time. (source)
• 1998: The Dixie Terminal ramps were torn down in summer as the reconstruction of Fort Washington Way began. (source)
• 2007: On September 11 Kentucky cut the weight limit to 11 tons after a University of Kentucky analysis, which barred buses from the bridge. (source)
• 2010: A $16.24 million project stripped the trusses and cables to bare metal and repainted them in a specially mixed shade now called Roebling Blue. (source)
• 2021: The bridge closed on February 15 for a nine-month rehabilitation and reopened in November. (source)

Sources

• en.wikipedia.org: John A. Roebling Suspension Bridge
• roeblingbridge.org: Bridge History
• cincinnati-transit.net: suspension
• cincypost.com: bridge032599
• cincinnati.com: ohioans resisted suspension bridge
• archive.org: in.ernet.dli.2015.60319
• loc.gov: oh0104
• en.wikipedia.org: History of Cincinnati
• en.wikipedia.org: Fort Finney (Ohio)
• en.wikipedia.org: Symmes Purchase
• commons.wikimedia.org: Category:Roebling Suspension Bridge