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Historic Pittsburgh is a digital collection that provides an opportunity to explore and research the history of Pittsburgh and the surrounding Western Pennsylvania area on the Internet. This website enables access to historic material held by the University of Pittsburgh's University Library System, the Library & Archives of the Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania at the Senator John Heinz Pittsburgh Regional History Center, and the Carnegie Museum of Art. The project represents a model of cooperation between libraries and museums in providing online access to their respective materials.

Gentlemen:
It gives me great pleasure to be enabled to report the Niagara Suspension Rail Way Bridge complete in all its parts. The success of this work may now be considered an established fact. The trains of the New York Central, and of the Great Western Rail Road in Canada, have been crossing regularly since the 18th of March, averaging over 30 trips per day.
One single observation of the passage of a train over the Niagara Bridge, will convince the most skeptical, that the practicability of Suspended Railway Bridges, so much doubted heretofore, has been successfully demonstrated.

The construction of durable Iron Highway Bridges instead of perishable wooden structures – securing, as it does an ornamental and permanent improvement to the public highways, and avoiding their frequent obstruction for the repair or rebuilding of wooden bridges failing from decay, storm or fire – has become an imperative public want, wherever trial has been made of properly designed and constructed work.

From southeast to northwest, Cleveland is traversed by the winding Cuyahoga river valley, which, while it provides the railroads with an effective entrance to the city, cuts it into two distinct districts as far as vehicular traffic is concerned. To provide crossings over the river and its wide valley, several bridges have been builds, notably the Detroit-superior Bridge near the lakefront and the central viaduct to the south. After 25 years of study on viaduct to connect Lorain avenue on the west of the river with the district to the east, in The Course of which time the project was once abounded after bonds had actually been voted for construction, the citizens of Cleveland are opening, the first week in the November, a $6500000 viaduct 5,865 ft. long, with its eastern terminus at central avenue. Dr. Watson's interest in the project has been continuos since its inception.

In developing the STRUCTURAL ENGINEERING SLIDE LIBRARY as a comprehensive resource for teaching structural and architectural engineering at college and university level, I felt there was a need to devote a volume to the work of one structural design company. Leonhardt, Andrä and Partners of Stuttgart, Germany, was an ideal choice for this project. One of Europe’s leading structural design companies, its staff has been on the leading edge of many developments in engineering over the past 40 years. Their name has been particularly associated with the development of incrementally launched bridges, cable-stayed bridges, cable-net structures, and prestressed concrete television towers.

WATSON, WILBUR J. (5 Apr. 1871-22 May 1939), a civil engineer, especially eminent in bridge design, was born in BEREA to David R. and Maria (Parker) Watson. Receiving his B.S. from the Case School of Engineering, Watson developed a carefully stated philosophy of the relationship between engineering and aesthetics and used structural and reinforced concrete to produce some of the most beautiful BRIDGES in northern Ohio. He helped set standards for bridge construction across the country. While employed by OSBORN ENGINEERING CO. in Cleveland, Watson was designing bridges as early as 1898. Marrying Harriett Martha Barnes in 1900, Watson founded his own firm, Wilbur J. Watson & Associates, in 1907.

The King Iron Bridge Co. played an important role in the development and construction of metal truss bridges, a product of American engineering and construction technology, nationwide during the later part of the Nineteenth Century. The King Iron Bridge & Manufacturing Co. was organized under that name in Cleveland in 1871 by Zenas King, who had started his career in building bridges in 1858. King came to Cleveland from Cincinnati around 1861, and by 1865 had established his works on Wason (East 38th St.) between St. Clair and Hamilton Avenue. The Company moved to a larger plant on Ruskin Ave.(East 69th St.) around 1888.

Stowell Park Suspension Bridge is an private accommodation bridge over the canal, serving Stowell Park on the north side, giving access to Lower Bristow Copse on the south side of the canal.
The bridge is an elegant web of iron; Dredge's Patent; 42 miles 60 chains from Reading. It was erected at the private expense of Colonel Wroughton of Wilcot, 1845.

Debate about the descriptor for Victoria's second university was not prolonged and through an enabling Act 1958, Monash University became one of a very few universities in the world named after a military hero. Of German-Jewish immigrant stock Sir John Monash was Australian, indeed Victorian, to the core and is still regarded as Australia's greatest fighting General. He was possessed of such diverse talents that his scholastic failures as a young man serve to remind us that even great men are human and that focus, application and determination are key ingredients for success as much in academia as in other spheres of life.

See "Album of Designs of the Phoenix Bridge Company."