1891+1936,1990 South Side Bridge over Kanawha River in Charleston, WV

(Bridge Hunter broke Mar 22, 2023; Historic Bridges; HAER; Satellite)

Street View, Mar 2022

 

LC-DIG-highsm- 31706 (ONLINE) [P&P]
The South Side Bridge over the Kanawha River in Charleston, West Virginia

Credit line: West Virginia Collection within the Carol M. Highsmith Archive, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.

Carol M. Highsmith's photographs are in the public domain.

We Work the Waterways posted

Here is something unique!

An infrared camera shot of the Charleston, WV skyline on the Kanawha River. Infrared blocks out most visible light and picks up light our eyes 👀 cannot see. It makes green leaves and foliage appear white. 

This photo was taken in mid-Summer. Let’s call it “WINTER IN JULY!” 

Courtesy of Gary Wendell  Photography.

Tom O'Dell: Great shot. The old Union Carbide Building is a historical landmark.

LC-USW3- 029724-D [P&P] LOT 844 
Charleston, West Virginia. A bridge over the Kanawha River
[I presume this 1943 photo is of this bridge.]

"The bridge is an extremely early example of a large truss bridge that has no v-lacing or lattice on its members." The length is "1,146.4 Feet (349.4 Meters)" and the main span is "420.0 Feet (128 Meters)."[HistoricBridges]

I don't normally include portal views because it is easy enough for a reader to get them. But I wanted to emphasize the modern holes-instead-of-lattice beams that Historic Bridges describes.

Street View, Oct 2021

Hailey Horn on behalf of Preservation Alliance of West Virginia, Billy Joe Peyton, and Clio Admin. "South Side Bridge ." Clio: Your Guide to History. March 15, 2017. Accessed January 11, 2024. https://theclio.com/entry/22828

"The South Side Bridge in Charleston, WV, was established as a result of the city becoming the state capital, and a sign of growth throughout the South Side. The bridge was completed in 1891, and allowed community members to cross the Kanawha River to the C&O Railway station without having to board a ferry. In 1936 the original bridge was condemned and another was built in its place by the WPA in efforts to revitalize Downtown Charleston. The bridge was renovated in the 1990s in effort to preserve a historic piece of Charleston that was largely responsible for the city’s expansion into the South Side. A local rumor that Chuck Yeager flew under the South Side Bridge was in circulation until the famous pilot debunked the accusations in 2010."
mywvhome
This was the first bridge to cross the river at Charleston.
[The building on the right was the C&O Depot.]

"WPA funds provided 40 percent of the $667,000 cost, city appropriations the remainder. Whether the bridge was the largest WPA project in the country at the time, as local accounts often claim, it was indeed a mammoth undertaking." [sah-archipedia]