The Wheeling Suspension Bridge

Here are some photos I took while on a boat trip down the Ohio River passing through Wheeling.

This is the first long-span wire-cable suspension bridge ever built. It was the longest clear-span bridge in the world at one time. Built between 1846 and 1849, it's deck was wrecked by a violent storm in 1854.
Here is a quote from an eyewitness;
"For a few moments we watched it with breathless anxiety, lunging like a ship in the storm; at one time it rose to nearly the heighth of the towers then fell, and twisted and writhed, and was dashed almost bottom upward. At last there seemed to be a determined twist along the entire span, about one half of the flooring being nearly reversed, and down went the immense structure from its dizzy heighth to the stream below, with an appalling crash and roar. Nearly the entire structure struck the water at the same instant dashing up an unbroken column of foam across the river, to the heighth of at least forty feet! "
It was rebuilt and remains the most significant pre-Civil War bridge in the country.

The bridge spans a distance of 1,010 feet across the Ohio River so as to allow boats to pass underneath it. It remains the oldest vehicular suspension bridge in the USA that is still in use.

The fellow standing on the bridge is Jpaul, who was with me on the boat that weekend.

The green bridge next to it is the I-70 bridge that runs between Columbus, Ohio and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
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