Henry Street Bridge

Art, y'all are cracking me up.

The Bat Signal worked, Melissa is on the case!

Thanks Melissa!

Yes, excellent work, Melissa! Good to have confirmation.

Thanks Tony. A pleasure as always.

Nice work as always Melissa!

Yes, destroyed by ice in February 1883. No earth shattering information to add. Just confirmation.

It does appear that the 1883 flood was rather severe and may have taken out a good number of spans in Northwest Ohio.

And also, I recall that there was a bad ice jam/flood in Toledo in early 1883 that took out the Cherry Street Bridge there....same disaster here maybe?

...And yes Art, Melissa is fabulous!

Yup... My money goes with a typo and that it was built after the previous structure was lost... in 1883. It matches up perfectly with a Massillon design that would have been completed shortly thereafter. And those still in use abuts may well have come from that earlier bridge.

Paul,

Also, remember, we just learned from the Tiffin material that a significant flood that took out a number of bridges occurred on Feb. 5, 1883.

I'm curious as to what will turn up if Melissa gets on the case or if we point the Society in this direction.

Regards,

Art S.

Paul,

Glad I could help.

Unless a historic society has a Melissa, they get it a bit off a large percentage of the time. Even so, the info is directionally correct and very valuable.

The interesting thing is that as this database grows, we're not only gaining knowledge about individual bridges but trends, such as portal design progression. I suspect that soon we'll be able to identify and date many more of the ponies.

This database is also more tangibly showing how few remain of what once was; and how important the remaining bridges are.

Regards,

Art S.

Thanks, Art!

I was thinking somewhat along the same lines after staring at the photo for awhile and looking at other Massillon bridges. The Facebook photo looks like the Henry Street site and no other bridge in the area was washed out in 1893 as far as I know, so I would hazard a guess that the location is right, but the date has one digit wrong (1883). As we saw with Tiffin's Market Street Bridge, it wouldn't be the first time even a historical society slightly erred on a year!

Paul

Paul,

I'm not sure I can give you a 100% answer without other evidence.

What I can say is that most of these companies had certain design ques for each period. All of the Massillon bridges with this portal design that have a known build date were made between 1883 and 1885. I doubt this deign was built before 1883 but it is possible that the portal design remained an option or could be 'special ordered' later than 1885.

An example of this is Harrisburg, PA's Walnut Street Bridge

https://bridgehunter.com/pa/dauphin/walnut-street/ it is well documented as having been made in 1890 but it has a cast iron portal brace design that was superseded in 1887. I haven't yet found an answer to the reason for this anomaly.

If I was to place a bet, I'd bet the link either refers to another location or the society got he date wrong.

Regards,

Art S.

Art (or anyone who has some thoughts on the matter):

This Henry County Historical Society photo says that a bridge at Florida was destroyed in 1893....which would likely make the bridge on this page an 1893-1894 creation. Do you think this is a late example of this style of Massillon portals or that the date from the historical society is wrong (perhaps 1883)?

https://www.facebook.com/99501679118/photos/a.428521914118/1...

That's a nice one! First color photo I've seen of this span.

I'm impressed by the size of those stone piers. Interesting that they appear to be built substantially wider than the trusses....even wide enough to support the modern two-lane bridge.

And WIBCo. and Keystone and Penn. and the Roeblings, with a Berlin with a minor fling with Variety 8-)

Uh oh...

Don't worry CBW will always be my first love. For atonement, I've reworked https://bridgehunter.com/oh/trumbull/south-main-street/ and added a more worthy pic.

You cheating on CBW and the Morrisons with Massillon Art? 😜

Looks like an 1883-1885 Massillon product to me.

Regards,

Art S.

Neat photo! I had always wondered what the old bridge at Florida looked like. The portals are rather unusual and utilitarian looking.