1924 Wil-Cox Bridge Opening Photos

Earlier this month, I brought over the feature I did on the Wil-Cox Bridge on the old website to the blog. The seven arch concrete open-spandrel bridge opened in 1924 and was a key piece of the Central Highway. Recently, Ben Thurkill sent along a handful of photos from the bridge's 1924 opening. The five photos below are part of the NCDOT archives.

Today, the Wil-Cox Bridge is slowly becoming a center piece for a regional park. In August 2015, Davidson County Commissioners agreed to take over the bridge from the state. The state transferred the $2.5 million that would have been used to demolish the historic bridge to the county. Those funds are being used for bridge preservation and future development of the regional park. In 2016, Davidson County purchased nearly 14 nearby acres that included Fort York, a Confederate Fort built in the waning years of the Civil War. Davidson County intends on unveiling a master plan for the Wil-Cox Bridge, Fort York, and the regional park early in 2017.

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The story behind the ghost ramps around Pittsburgh International Airport

The roads around Pittsburgh International Airport have a lot of history and intrigue. The growth of the airport and resulting land acquisitions has changed the routing of many roads in Western Allegheny County. As the airport grew and traffic around the airport increased, the need for new roads would also change the landscape. Of course, the fact that this is Pittsburgh means there were also plans for highways that never came to be. Two of these never built highway plans, the Beaver Valley Expressway (BVE) extension and the full-speed connection to the Southern Expressway at Flaugherty Run Road have traces - specifically ghost ramps - of highways that never came to be.

Beaver Valley Expressway Extension:

For close to three decades this unused piece of roadway along the southern end of Beaver Valley Expressway puzzled Pittsburgh area travelers. Located near the current-day maintenance hangers for Pittsburgh International Airport, this concrete stub of a highway was supposed to be …

Quemahoning Tunnel

The Quemahoning Tunnel may have never been built by the Pennsylvanina Turnpike Commission, but it still has a history unto itself. Originally planned to carry rail along the South Penn Railway, the tunnel never would not see any trains until 1909 when a small line named the Pittsburgh, Westmoreland & Somerset began utilizing it. The use was brief and by the end of 1916 the PW&S was no longer in operation and abandoned the facility. Twenty-some years later, the newly formed Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission considered using the abandoned tunnel, in fact it was shown on some original plans. However, the PTC decided against using it, and the tunnel remained empty.

The eastern portal of the Quemahoning Tunnel is easily accessible from the PA Turnpike. The portal is located at mile 106.3 along the westbound roadway. The tunnel is one of the many "What Could Have Been's?" of the Pennsylvania Turnpike. Below, Bill Symons shares photos taken in late Fall of 1986 of …

Roebling Aqueduct

In a quiet and often overlooked corner of Northeastern Pennsylvania, the country's oldest surviving suspension bridge crosses the Delaware River into New York. The Delaware Aqueduct, designed and built by famed engineer John A. Roebling, has withstood a very colorful history from being an important piece in the region's transportation, to uncertainty during the growth of rail, nearly eight decades of neglect and poor management as a private toll bridge, to finally being restored by the National Park Service and in use as an automobile bridge today.

Construction and Canal Era (1847-1898):
During the 1840's, the Delaware & Hudson Canal was looking at ways to speed up service along its route. One of the major bottlenecks was where the canal reached the Delaware River. Since it began operation in 1828, the D&H used a rope ferry to pull traffic along to Canal across the Delaware. The conflicting traffic of vessels going down the Delaware to Trenton or Philadelphia and…

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