Great Crossings Bridge (Old US 40/National Road)
Videos
Abandoned town under water emerges! Somerfield Pa Video of inundated town that includes footage of the bridge and old photos of the bridge. Stuffthats Gone | |
Description
This bridge's status says "Open to Pedestrians" due to the fact that it has never been closed to anyone, and since it is in perfect shape, curious pedestrians walk across it when the lake level is down.Facts
- Overview
- Stone arch bridge over Youghiogheny River Lake (or, to state it more accurately, the Youghiogheny River Lake crosses the Great Crossings Bridge) on an old alignment of US 40/National Road
- Location
- Somerfield (City submerged beneath Youghiogheny River Lake since 1943), Somerset County, Pennsylvania, and Fayette County, Pennsylvania
- Status
- Open to pedestrians
- Future prospects
- The bridge is "Preserved in place" by default.
- History
- Built 1818 as part of the National Road. Bridge submerged along with Somerfield when Youghiogheny River was dammed downstream to create Youghiogheny River Lake.
- Design
- Stone arch
- Approximate latitude, longitude
- +39.75465, -79.39553 (decimal degrees)
39°45'17" N, 79°23'44" W (degrees°minutes'seconds") - Approximate UTM coordinates
- 17/637449/4401757 (zone/easting/northing)
- Quadrangle map:
- Ohiopyle
- Inventory number
- BH 50552 (Bridgehunter.com ID)
Update Log
- May 15, 2020: New photos from Geoff Hubbs
- October 6, 2019: New photo from Melissa Brand-Welch
- October 28, 2016: New video from Kelly McClanahan
- February 12, 2016: Updated by Don Morrison: Moved pin to approximate location
- December 15, 2011: Updated by James McCray: Added categories "US 40", "National Road"
- August 21, 2008: Updated by Kim Harvey
- August 20, 2008: Added by Kim Harvey
Sources
- Kim Harvey
- PA Highways: US 40
- James McCray - jamesinslocomb [at] yahoo [dot] com
- A bridge to the 19th century - Explanation of the bridge's existence
- Todd Wilson
- Don Morrison
- Some History About Somerfield, Pennsylvania - History of the inundated town, with bridge information
- Melissa Brand-Welch - melissabrandwelch [at] msn [dot] com
- Kelly McClanahan
- Geoff Hubbs
Comments
Curses! Foiled again!
Found some info about this interesting bridge and added to the page only to find out that it is a duplicate. 8^(
info needs to be edited/merged and the duplicate removed.
I have to agree with Nathan...and would classify this one as an "Interesting Ruin".
PennDOT already found the US-40 truss bridge seen in the background of the Panoramio photos from 2000. The bridge there today is a PennDOT special. (Ugly modern bridge with stone formliner on all concrete elements)
As for the stone bridge, I would argue that the bridge falls a bit short of preserved and perfect shape. In the photos from 2000, I see evidence of severe deterioration. Entire portions of the parapet are missing, and on some portions of the bridge the belt course and even parts of the spandrel wall are missing as well. The loss of the stones in the spandrel wall appear to have exposed the earth fill to the water in which the bridge is submerged, which have caused it to slowly wash the fill out of the bridge. This can be seen in a 2010 photo of the bridge where portions of the added concrete deck have broken and settled, since the fill that once supported them is gone.
Check this one out! Who needs Atlantis? We have the entire city of Somerfield, PA and its bridge submerged and preserved perfectly underneath the Youghiogheny River Lake. However the bridge appears above water from time to time. Well, at least this bridge is safe from the clutches of PennDOT, then again, maybe not; for this one they may hire rogue ex-NAVY Seals and have them plant underwater explosives on the bridge to destroy it.
I took these photos from the east during a low water period in the dam on December 5, 2008. The second photo shows the Somerfield bridge's proximity to Route 40 (and the newly built bridge over the Yough reservoir). You can see the bases of the piers of the previous Route 40 bridge that was demolished earlier that year.
This page's URL is http://bridgehunter.com/pa/somerset/bh50552/
The other page is here:
http://bridgehunter.com/pa/somerset/bh50552/