Kinzua Viaduct, Kane and Mount Jewett, McKean County

Today's post is full of all kinds of special stuff! Not only am I about to announce the winners of the blog's first-ever giveaway, but it's also our first foray into the western side of Pennsylvania. The whole state is in the 'green phase' now, so it's a little easier to do some traveling to collect markers, but it also means I've gone back to work so finding the time to do that traveling is more of a challenge. 

More on that in a minute, however, because I'm sure that first you want to know who won the prizes! As you might recall, the prizes being offered included a copy of the Spring 2020 issue of Pennsylvania Heritage magazine, a replica of the Commonwealth's original charter, and a reproduction of a map showing the development of the counties. They were all purchased from the online store at Shop PA Heritage, and the purchase supports the continued work of the PHMC. (As noted on the giveaway page, the PHMC neither endorsed nor sponsored the giveaway.) Winners were chosen using the free spinner at Wheel of Names.

Congratulations to the following individuals: Stephanie Brown, John Robinson, and Warren Nast! I'll be contacting you directly via email to tell you about your prize and get your mailing address so I can send it to you. If you didn't win this time around, fear not; there's going to be another giveaway later this year, maybe in the fall as part of my birthday celebration.

Moving on to the focus of today's post, we're venturing west of the Susquehanna River for the first time, to the northern reaches of McKean County. I had fully intended to visit today's subject myself (and may yet), but because of all the shutdowns, a lot of plans got canceled or curtailed. You may recall that earlier this year, I did a post about Ole Bull's Colony in Potter County, courtesy of some photos provided by my sister Liza; the ones in today's quest log were provided by our other sister, Lisa. She stopped there on her way to Erie some while ago, before any of the COVID-19 stuff started happening, and was kind enough to share her photos with me so I could share them with all of you.

The marker is found at the Kinzua Bridge
State Park visitor center, on Viaduct Road.
Image courtesy of Lisa Croizier.

This is actually another first for me, in that the marker you see here was not the original marker for the site. I don't mean that it replaced a badly damaged or stolen marker; that's fairly common. I mean that before this one was erected following the opening of the skywalk, the PHMC had placed a completely different marker for it. You can see a picture of the original PHMC marker at the Historical Marker Database if you follow the link in the sources section.

Kinzua Bridge, or Kinzua Viaduct, was a railroad trestle spanning the majestic valley carved by Kinzua Creek. I'm not exactly sure about its location - some of my sources say that it's in Kane (and indeed, that's where the park's mailing address is listed), while others say it's in Mount Jewett, or at least close enough to count. Rather than play favorites, I've listed them both in the subject and tags on the post.

Transporting valuable commodities from Pennsylvania to provide for the increasing needs of New York was a challenge even for the growing network of railroads, a challenge recognized by one Thomas L. Kane, for whom the community of Kane was eventually named. He was president of the New York, Lake Erie and Western Coal and Railroad Company, or NYLE&W, and he was the one who wanted this bridge built. It would solve the serious hurdle he faced of creating a branch of the main Pennsylvania rail line, connecting the community of Bradford with the coal fields of Elk County.

Octave Chanute, a French native who served as the company's chief civil engineer, contracted with the Phoenix Iron Works in Phoenixville to manufacture their patented hollow iron "Phoenix columns" for the bridge's construction. (The iron works have their own marker and will appear in this blog later.) The crew labored from May 10 to August 29, 1882 - an almost impossibly short building period for such a massive project. They didn't use scaffolding, which cut down on the construction time, and though this made the project more dangerous, no injuries are recorded. The roadbed was supported by twenty iron towers, six of which were higher than those used to make the Brooklyn Bridge, and each tower was composed of four of those Phoenix columns. There were also 110 masonry piers, made of sandstone. The bridge was only ten feet wide at the top, but the tower bases were considerably wider to provide structural support; the tallest tower was 103 feet wide at its base.

The completed bridge weighed 3.1 million pounds and cost $167,000 to build, which would be roughly $4.5 million in today's money. At the time of its completion, Kinzua was both the tallest (301 feet high) and the longest (2,053 feet long) railroad bridge in the world; because of the height, the trains crossing it were restricted to just five miles per hour. Briefly, this engineering marvel was touted as the "Eighth Wonder of the World." It was supplanted in this designation two years later, when the Eiffel Tower was built; but for a while it enjoyed a great deal of publicity and was visited by railroad enthusiasts from all over, who came to see both the spectacular construction and the incredible views of the valley they could experience while crossing.

Kinzua Viaduct as it appears today.
Image courtesy of Lisa Croizier.

Eighteen years later, in 1900, things had to change. In 1893 the NYLE&W company had gone bankrupt and merged with the Erie Railroad Company, who now owned the bridge and were faced with a new problem. Trains were much heavier in 1900 than they had been just two decades earlier, and the Kinzua Bridge was simply not strong enough to endure continual usage by such heavy machinery. It was reconstructed, pieces at a time, starting from both ends. The original wrought iron towers remained, but became supplemented by stronger steel towers to increase the integrity of the bridge. However, the original bolts were also reused, and this would become a problem - though not until over a century later. Kinzua, now able to safely accommodate even the 511-short-ton Union Pacific "Big Boy" locomotive, was reopened on September 25, 1900. An unmanned station was added to the bridge, but was closed in the 1920s.

By the late 1950s, the Erie Railroad began taking pains to avoid using Kinzua, which was clearly feeling its age. They acquired trackage rights on the nearby Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (yes, that would be the famous B&O Railroad you can buy in Monopoly) and bypassed Kinzua by making use of those bridges instead. In 1959, they ended all commercial service on the Kinzua and sold the bridge to the Kovalchick Salvage Company, although it had to be reopened for one day in October of the same year; a wreck on the B&O line meant that trains had to be rerouted. 

Meanwhile, Nick Kovalchick, whose salvage company now owned the bridge, was reluctant to tear it down for scrap, having great appreciation for its significance and impressive appearance. It was thanks to the grassroots efforts of Kovalchick and other interested locals that the bridge and nearby land were purchased by the Commonwealth in 1963, and in 1970 it reopened as Kinzua Bridge State Park. Improvements were made in 1974 to make the park more visitor-friendly, including the additions of an access road, bathroom facilities, and public drinking fountains. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1977, and to the National Register of Historic Civil Engineering Landmarks in 1982. Beginning in 1987, it once again began to serve as a railroad bridge thanks to the Knox and Kane Railroad, which utilized the Kinzua as it conducted sightseeing trips through the Allegheny National Forest; crossing the bridge was known as riding the "Tracks Across the Sky."

Wreckage of the Kinzua Bridge towers, as
viewed from the modern skywalk.
Image courtesy of Lisa Croizier.

In 2002, all "recreational pedestrian and railroad usage" was canceled on the Kinzua, because engineers had determined that high winds posed a serious risk to the structure. In February of 2003, repairs and restoration were begun on the Kinzua. But a storm blew up on July 21st of that year, an F-1 tornado forming in the midst of it. Many trees were uprooted, and the Kinzua Bridge was decimated, with eleven of the twenty towers collapsing under the ferocity. It was later determined that those original bolts, which I mentioned would eventually be a problem, had become so badly rusted that they failed to properly anchor the tower bases into the concrete foundations. In less than a minute, more than half of the bridge was laid to waste. Fortunately, the workers had all left for the day shortly before the storm hit, so no one was harmed in the collapse.

Rather than restore the bridge, it was decided to refurbish the surviving part as a sort of monument to the forces of nature. Six of the nine surviving towers were restored. By 2011, the tracks had been removed, replaced by a pedestrian walkway known as the Kinzua Skywalk. Visitors can walk out 600 feet on the surviving support towers to take in the magnificence of Kinzua Gorge, even looking down through a partial glass platform to see the towers underneath. The ADA accessible park is open daily, from dawn to dusk, though the skywalk's availability depends on weather conditions. The visitor's center, added in 2016, includes self-guided and interactive exhibits and a gift shop. Driving directions and group tour information, as well as a full list of regulations and amenities, can be found at the official website linked below, and the Kinzua Bridge Foundation continues to work to improve the park to make it ever more appealing as a tourist destination.

I still would like to see this in person, even despite my terrible fear of heights. Hopefully I'll get the chance - and hopefully, so will you - to walk along what remains of the "Tracks Across the Sky."

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Sources and Further Reading:

Kinzua Bridge State Park

The Kinzua Bridge Foundation

Kinzua Railway Viaduct at the website of the American Society of Civil Engineers

Treese, Lorett. Railroads of Pennsylvania. Stackpole Books, Mechanicsburg, PA, 2002.

Kinzua Viaduct at the Historical Marker Database

Kinzua Bridge at the Historical Marker Database

If you've enjoyed this, please leave a comment!

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Except where indicated, all writing and photography on this blog is the intellectual property of Laura Klotz. This blog is written with permission of the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission. I am not employed by the PHMC. All rights reserved.