Today, I will be shifting gears away from talking about new businesses or business research and talk about something different. I will delving into Sacramento area’s best bridges and their history. We will first start off with the most obvious and iconic bridge in the area.
Tower Bridge, Sacramento- The bright yellow colored two gate
bridge is a major architectural piece in the Sacramento skyline. It was built
in 1935 and it is partly a draw bridge with the central part lifting 100 feet
sometimes to allow for large boats to pass through. The bridge was designed
using the Streamline Moderne style of architecture, which is an extremely rare style
of bridge design. It is often used in buildings and vehicles. It happens to be
on the shortest state highway in California, SR 275, which is 738 feet long. But
is a major focal point to the Sacramento cityscape and I believe is what makes
Sacramento stand out as a city.
Foresthill Bridge, Auburn- steel Warren cantilever deck
truss structure which crosses the North Fork American River. The bridge was
made in Japan by the Kawasaki Heavy Industries. It was constructed in 1972 for
the planned, but never built Auburn Dam and its reservoir for access to
Foresthill and its nearby mountainous communities. As a result, it is the
highest bridge in California at a height of 730 feet from top to bottom, and the
fourth highest in the United States. And when you see it from the bottom, you
are awarded with seeing a tall green larger than life arch. And while on the
bridge, you have breathtaking views of the American River Canyon below. And I
learned that it surprisingly doesn’t have any legal bungee jumping tours as I
know of for being such a tall bridge. The only bridge I know of in the state
that has these tours is the Bridge to Nowhere in the San Gabriel Mountains in
Southern California.
Bridgeport Covered Bridge, Bridgeport (Yuba County)-It was
built in 1862 after the previous Bridgeport bridge was washed out from heavy
rains that winter. The bridge is designed using the Howe Truss with timber
trusses and iron rods and plates joined by a Burr arch, named after Theodore
Burr, who first used this design on a Hudson River bridge in 1804. The bridge
is 249 feet long. It is the only remaining single-span bridge of this type of
this size. While visiting this bridge, I felt like I was traveling to New
Hampshire or Vermont being on a covered bridge, but instead of being in a tall,
lush forest as you imagine being in New Hampshire, you are surrounded by digger
pines and manzanita bushes. It is interesting to see that the largest of these
bridges is not in New England, but in the foothills of Northern California.
Rainbow Bridge, Folsom-It was built in 1918 to link Folsom
with the then agricultural lands of the Citrus Heights and Orangevale areas,
then some of the richest agricultural lands in the state. They are now mostly
taken by suburban residential and commercial areas. At the time it was built, it’s
concrete arch was the fourth largest concrete arch span in the world. It
originally had a simple name, the American River Bridge named after the river
it crosses. But in the 1950s, in order to lure travelers through postcards, the
more descriptive name Rainbow Bridge was suggested, with its rainbow arch and
picturesque scene around the bridge, which took hold and has been name its used
ever since.
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Rio Vista Bridge, Rio Vista. This bridge has had two
iterations. The first iteration was constructed in 1919 as a Strauss Trunnion
Bascule style bridge. The second iteration started construction in 1943 and was
completed in 1959. During that time between 1943 and 1959, the old bridge and
the new bridge existed alongside each other, using the west end of the old
bridge with the east end of the new bridge. It is the second longest lift
bridge in the state being 2,890 feet, with the longest being the Schulyer Heim
Lift Bridge in Long Beach which is 3,976 feet long. It was interesting to see
this bridge when I went the first time, since it was in one of the wettest
years in California history, to see the river almost reach the bridge and the
river actually flooding one of the river roads. The two vertical towers on the
bridge and being on flatland remind me of seeing pictures of the Mississippi
River/Ohio River area with similar terrain and farmland.
Mosquito Bridge, Swansboro- It was built in 1867 and
reconstructed in 1939 as a small suspension bridge connecting Placerville with
the small communities of the Swansboro area. The county is actually working on
building a replacement bridge, which will be 400 feet above the river. It takes
23 minutes to go 9 miles from Main Street in Placerville. And the road is
really windy going down to the bridge and once you are there, you are awarded
with driving over a swinging wooden bridge as you head across another windy
section of road to get to the residential community of Swansboro.
I Street Bridge, Sacramento- It was built in 1911 as the heaviest
swinging center bridge in the United States, weighing over 7 million lbs. It
has two decks, one for road traffic and one for railroad traffic. This was a really
innovative and efficient way of designing a bridge, a precursor to the Bay
Bridge design built 26 years later with one deck for freeway traffic and the
other for railroad traffic. And another spotlight showing that Sacramento was the
pioneer in transportation hubs with playing a key role in developing the
railroad being the terminus of the Transcontinental Railroad and having one of
the first railroad’s in the country, the Sacramento Valley Railway. And being a
major point on the nation’s first highway, the Lincoln Highway.
I hope you enjoyed learning about these bridges and that it hopefully inspires you to take a trip to these bridges yourself.
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