Industrial History: OH-611 1939,1989,2016 Henderson Bridge over Black River in Lorain, OH

Thursday, April 9, 2020

OH-611 1939,1989,2016 Henderson Bridge over Black River in Lorain, OH

(Bridge Hunter; Historic Bridges; B&T; 3D Satellite)

Unlike some states, Ohio maintains at least some of its truss bridges. 1989 and 2016 are dates of rehabilitation projects.

Boston Public Library Flickr, License: Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) via Bridge Hunter
The Lorain Central High Level Bridge, Lorain, Ohio

As of Oct 21, 1991, the official name is Lofton Henderson Memorial Bridge. [Cleaveland State University] He was a native of Lorain, OH. The original names were 21st Street Bridge and High Level Bridge.

Lorain Port and Finance Authority posted

The Lofton Henderson Memorial Bridge, mile 2, is a fixed bridge that provides a horizontal clearance of 256-feet and a vertical clearance of 97-feet based on LWD.

Two photos of the bridge contain the following description:

Two photographs show the Lofton Henderson Bridge, also known as the Central High Level Bridge, in Lorain, Ohio. The photographs were taken by the office of the Lorain County Commissioners between 1940 and 1942. The Central High Level Bridge, which is large enough for freighters to pass underneath, carries Ohio Route 611 over the Black River in Lorain, Ohio. It was re-named the Lofton Henderson Memorial Bridge to honor a local man killed in service during World War II. Henderson (1903-1942) was shot down by a Japanese plane in the Pacific during the Battle of Midway on June 4, 1942. As his last act of valor, he guided his wounded aircraft into the smokestack of a Japanese aircraft carrier, destroying the enemy vessel in the resulting explosion. For this act he was posthumously awarded the Navy Cross.

When I saw the lack of V-lacing in the truss members, I thought the 1989 rehabilitation must have been very extensive. But Historic Bridges explains that this 1939 bridge was built with these very futuristic (at the time) looking truss members.

Street View

An advantage of a cantilever bridge is that it does not need falsework in the navigation channel during construction.

ClevelandMemory, Cleveland State University. Michael Schwartz Library. Special Collections
21st Street Bridge construction in Lorain, Ohio
Construction of East 21st Street Bridge across the Black River in Lorain, Ohio. With construction starting in 1938, the bridge has a massive 1,700 foot single span 'Through Truss Cantilever Style'.

The 1939 project must have included a lot of dredging as well. As this satellite image shows, the river now fills the entire main span.

3D Satellite

ClevelandMemory, Cleveland State University. Michael Schwartz Library. Special Collections
East 21st Street Bridge looking east, 1940

Kudus to ODOT for maintaining this bridge. The rehabilitation in 1989 was a deck replacement. When someone learned that ODOT planned to spend $3,250,000 on the bridge in 2016, some people immediately assumed that it would be for a replacement study rather than for maintenance. One reason for the misunderstanding is that the Northeast Ohio Areawide Coordinating Agency had described the project incorrectly. [Bridge Hunter comments, LocoPhotogBlog] The rehabilitation became a $5.3m project that included "stiffening plates, replacing bridge deck joints, touching up paint and replacing the navigation lights that glow under the bridge to mark the navigation channel of the Black River." The bridge had been repainted in 2007. [MorningJournal]

When I accessed a satellite image in Apr 2020, it appears to have been taken in 2016 because the southbound lanes are closed to traffic. Note the rehabilitation was extensive enough that it used a crane on a barge.