Ohio Turnpike - Cuyahoga River Bridge (Old)
Photos
Bridge with Cuyahoga Valley Scenic RR train under it
Public domain photo taken by the Environmental Protection Agency
View this photo at Wikimedia Commons
BH Photo #510897
Description
At a half-mile long, 175 feet high, and costing $6 million, these were the highest and longest bridges on the Ohio Turnpike. In 2003, they were the longest structures to ever have been explosively demolished.Timeline
Written by Paul Plassman
October 27, 1952
Ground broken at bridge site for beginning of Ohio Turnpike
October 1, 1955
219 miles of Ohio Turnpike opens, including the Cuyahoga River bridges
December 22, 1999
Construction begins on new eastbound bridge
October 12, 2001
New eastbound bridge opens to traffic
November 12, 2001
1st steel truss section imploded
November 20, 2001
Construction begins on new westbound bridge
January 12, 2002
Old eastbound bridge demolished by implosion
September 8, 2003
New westbound bridge opens to traffic
November 5, 2003
Old westbound bridge demolished by implosion
Facts
- Overview
- Lost Warren deck truss bridge over Cuyahoga River, Riverview Road, & Cuyahoga Valley Scenic RR on I-80 (Ohio Turnpike)
- Location
- Summit County, Ohio
- Status
- Replaced by a new bridge
- History
- Built 1955 by the Horvitz Co.; replaced in 2001 and 2003; eastbound bridge imploded January 2002; westbound bridge imploded November 2003
- Builder
- - Horvitz Co. of Cleveland, Ohio
- Railroad
- - Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railroad (CVSR)
- Design
- Massive pair of Warren deck truss bridges with girder approaches
Nine 250', 10-panel Warren deck truss spans
Four 100' steel girder spans - Dimensions
-
Length of largest span: 250.0 ft.
Total length: 2,688.1 ft. (0.5 mi.)
Deck width: 42.0 ft.
- Also called
- Boston Mills Bridge
- Approximate latitude, longitude
- +41.25574, -81.55561 (decimal degrees)
41°15'21" N, 81°33'20" W (degrees°minutes'seconds") - Approximate UTM coordinates
- 17/453453/4567295 (zone/easting/northing)
- Inventory numbers
- ODOT 7729626 (Ohio Dept. of Transportation structure file number)
BH 94849 (Bridgehunter.com ID)
Update Log
- March 18, 2023: New photo from Geoff Hubbs
- November 6, 2021: New photo from Geoff Hubbs
- November 6, 2021: Essay added by Paul Plassman
- October 27, 2021: Added by Paul Plassman
Related Bridges
- Ohio Turnpike - Cuyahoga River Bridge (Successor)
Sources
- Paul Plassman
- OHIO TURNPIKE CUYAHOGA RIVER BRIDGE REHABILITATION - Structural details
- Cleveland.com - Demolition info
- ImplosionWorld.com
- Ohio Turnpike Commission - Page 8-Info about history and timeline
- American Society of Highway Engineers - Info about new bridge and demolition of the old
- Geoff Hubbs
Comments
Nice work finding that photo! I have a friend who had told me there used to be a pair of deck trusses here, it was hard to believe at the time. The only surviving structure of interest on the entire Ohio Turnpike is a short distance east of this location https://historicbridges.org/bridges/browser/?bridgebrowser=o...
The end of a colossus:
This page's URL is http://bridgehunter.com/oh/summit/bh94849/
I've always been amazed by the size and quantity of the Cuyahoga River's deck trusses. For a relatively small river and one in a state that is not generally considered hilly (although Ohio has a lot more rugged topography in parts of it than a lot of people realize) it sure has (or had before the demo of this one and the Innerbelt) quite a collection of this relatively rare bridge type.
Interestingly, I believe this was the only truss bridge on the entire Ohio Turnpike. The second-largest span on the highway, the Maumee River crossing at Toledo, was a deck plate girder (possibly riveted) which was itself replaced in 1997 as part of the widening project.