Fort River Bridge
Facts
- Overview
- Lenticular pony truss bridge over Fort River on a pedestrian path next to MA 116
- Location
- Amherst, Hampshire County, Massachusetts
- Status
- Open to pedestrians
- History
- Built 1880 and bypassed in 1965 by new bridge. Rebuilt at some point later into a pedestrian bridge.
- Builder
- - Corrugated Metal Co. of East Berlin, Connecticut [also known as Berlin Iron Bridge Co.]
- Design
- Wrought-iron lenticular pony truss
- Dimensions
-
Span length: 60.0 ft.
Total length: 60.0 ft.
- Approximate latitude, longitude
- +42.35563, -72.52071 (decimal degrees)
42°21'20" N, 72°31'15" W (degrees°minutes'seconds") - Approximate UTM coordinates
- 18/704187/4692240 (zone/easting/northing)
- Quadrangle map:
- Mount Holyoke
- Inventory number
- BH 49911 (Bridgehunter.com ID)
Update Log
- June 16, 2016: New photos from Michael Quiet
- November 11, 2013: New Street View added by Luke Harden
- November 11, 2013: New photo from Marc N Belanger
- October 27, 2011: Updated by James McCray: Edited bridge info to reflect that the bridge is the Fort River Bridge instead of the GHRB.
- October 25, 2011: Added HAER photos and info
- October 25, 2011: Added by James McCray
Sources
- James McCray - jamesinslocomb [at] yahoo [dot] com
- HAER MA-105 - Tuttle Bridge, Spanning Housatonic River on Golden Hill Road, Lee, Berkshire, MA
- Marc N Belanger - mnbelanger [at] comcast [dot] net
- Luke
- Michael Quiet - mquiet [at] gmail [dot] com
Comments
Um......are we sure this is the Golden Hill Road Bridge? In the UMass site, http://www.ecs.umass.edu/adaptive_bridge_use/bridge_files/go..., it says the following about the GHRB, "In the Documentation section below you will find a Google Earth file that depicts the bridge as it might someday look. In the file the bridge is set up to span the drainage ditch on the University Drive side of the practice fields."
Now, I looked at the file it refers to and it places the GHRB at a complete different location than where this bridge is located. To me it seems like the GHRB and this bridge are two complete different bridges. This bridge (the one I think is not the GHRB) is not even anywhere near University Dr.--the location that the site places the future GHRB.
Need some clarification here, I think.
James... UMass has a "stash" of historic bridges in their possesion. When I get home later I will look for the info about it on my home computer. I thought about adding these at one time, but just never seem to find the time. I glad that you are adding all these great spans and am happy to help you when I can!
So yeah......im kinda of picking my mouth off the floor. Just been adding bridges on here at UMass and just happened to find this random lenticular pony truss south of Amherst, MA. The bridge is not listed on this site, until now, it is not listed on any other bridge site or historical site so it is completely out of the blue in my eyes. I can't really find any historical info from any database or anything, so I need help.
This page's URL is http://bridgehunter.com/ma/hampshire/fort-river/
I have done further research on the GHRB. This bridge is not the GHRB but is, instead, the Fort River Bridge. According to this paper, "LENTICULAR IRON TRUSS BRIDGES IN MASSACHUSETTS" (http://faculty-staff.ou.edu/C/Amy.B.Cerato-1/LenticularBridg...), there are two different bridges--the GHRB, which is currently dismantled and awaiting placement at UMass Amherst and the Fort River Bridge, which is this bridge we are wrongly calling the GHRB. Read the following paragraph from the paper:
"The Fort River Bridge is a 60 ft. long span crossing the Fort River in South Amherst and is shown in Figure 13. The bridge originally carried vehicular traffic as part of South Pleasant Street or what is now Rt. 116 between Amherst and South Hadley, but in 19??, the bridge was rebuilt as a pedestrian bridge by the Town of Amherst."
Therefore, to correct this error, I am going to rename this bridge Fort River Bridge. Secondly, I will also request that the webmaster remove the HAER photos of the GHRB, with no offense to whoever put them on this bridge's page. Finally, I will create the page for the GHRB and repost the HAER photos and its info on that page.