Bellaire-Benwood Bridge, Bellaire, OH and Benwood, WV

 

Standing elegantly over the Ohio River is a huge, heavy-looking, almost 100-year old bridge that probably should have been gone years ago, but not only is it still here.. it hasn't carried a single vehicle across the river in 32 years!

Just south of Wheeling, West Virginia, the Bellaire Bridge (also known as the Bellaire Interstate Toll Bridge and the Benwood Bridge) connects Bellaire, Ohio and Benwood, West Virginia, by way of a steel bridge that's 2,100 feet long.  So why is this beautiful bridge with no vehicles on it still standing?  Traffic was blocked off to the approaches on both sides of the river long ago.  Believe me, many agencies and individuals would love to see this giant mass of steel dynamited right into the swift downwaters of the Ohio River, but so far, the Bellaire Benwood Bridge has defied all the odds.


In the 1920's, state governments were looking for ways to get steady workers from Ohio to and from the many steel mills that dotted the West Virginia side of the Ohio River.  Ground was broken in 1926 for a massive three-span iron bridge being built by the Mt. Vernon Bridge Company of Mt. Vernon, Ohio.  Engineer John Edwin Greiner designed a riveted metal cantilever, 3-span Baltimore-type through truss bridge, with the middle span 700 feet long, crossing the barge channel of the river.  


It was built as a toll bridge, the 5-cent toll remaining in place until 1971 when the fee to cross was increased to 25 cents. By 1984 with the bridge losing money, the toll was pushed up to 50 cents a trip.  Alas, the extra money could not keep it open.. the Bellaire-Benwood Bridge closed to vehicular traffic in 1991.


As it turns out, the end of the bridge's vehicular career was not the end of its life.  After it closed, the Bellaire Benwood Bridge was sold that same year to the owner of a nearby construction company at the same time the approach ramp on the Ohio side was removed, and the one on the West Virginia side abandoned.


For the next 11 years, the bridge claimed the skyline, but not much more.


In 2002, city administrators from Benwood requested the bridge be demolished because concrete chunks of the deck, the size of basketballs and footballs, were dislodging and falling on the neighborhood underneath it. That demolition never happened.  Ownership of the doomed bridge changed hands twice in 2010, with a federal court ordering the bridge's demolition by 2013; in fact, three companies filed liens for scrap iron rights in the event the bridge was torn down.  

Today, 10 years later, they're still waiting.


As of my visit five years ago, and a subsequent call to the Benwood Police Department last week for this story, the defiant bridge as you see in the pictures is still with us.

The Bellaire Benwood Bridge holds the distinction of being the second oldest highway bridge spanning the entire 981-mile Ohio River system from Pittsburgh, PA to Cairo, IL.  It is also one of the oldest surviving highway cantilever steel truss bridges in the country.  According to one historic bridge site, pre-1950's steel cantilever bridges are among the most endangered in the country.


In the horror movie "The Silence of the Lambs," when the character of Clarice Starling is headed over to "Belvedere, Ohio" (a fictional town--no such town exists in Ohio) and she crosses the Ohio River, you'll probably notice the rusting, steel cantilevered bridge ferrying her car across the river.  That scene was filmed on the Bellaire Benwood Bridge.


The Bellaire Benwood Bridge is a rare, beautiful, historic landmark among the many bridges on the Ohio River.  Few bridges that have stared demolition deftly in the face have survived the wrecking ball.  But as of today, this one is still defying the odds.




 

Popular posts from this blog

Blevins Bridge, Roan Mountain, TN

Image
  Given the mountainous route, the busiest engine on the legendary Tweetsie Railroad was always called "the little engine that could."  Turns out, at least one of the bridges that ferried that engine and its cargo over the Doe River should have been called "the little bridge that could... have ties to a major steel icon and a worldwide business conglomerate." Industrialist Andrew Carnegie was renowned in the iron and steel manufacturing world in the late 19th century.  As steel mills were expanding from northern cities and establishing factories in the South, Carnegie founded the Keystone Bridge Company in 1865 under his company, the Carnegie Steel Company of Pittsburgh, PA (the Keystone Bridge Company was later absorbed into the American Bridge Company in 1900, still active today as a subsidiary of U.S. Steel). Back in its bridge building heyday, one of Keystone's most notable bridges was the Eads Bridge built in 1874 at St. Louis, Missouri, the oldest bridge s
Read more

Copper Creek Viaduct, Speers Ferry, VA

Image
  At the time it was built in 1908, it was the tallest railroad trestle, if not one of the tallest railroad trestles in the eastern United States.  Although it was soon eclipsed by other higher railroad bridges, the Copper Creek Viaduct between Speers Ferry and Clinchport, Virginia has maintained a nostalgic, almost romantic influence on steel truss bridge lovers, this being a popular destination point. Today, generations after the bridge was completed as part of 80 bridges on one of the most ambitious railroad lines in American history, the Copper Creek Viaduct is still one of the most photographed and talked-about steel deck truss bridges in this part of the country. In 1902 when George Carter purchased the Ohio River and Charleston Railroad (earlier known as the 3-C Railroad -- Carolina, Clinchfield and Chicago), his ambitious idea of the railroad he quickly named the South and Western Railway (later the Clinchfield) often placed the railroad bed itself higher than the ground it wou
Read more

Old Tugaloo - U.S. 123 Bridge, between Toccoa, GA and Westminster, SC

Image
  The Old Tugaloo River Bridge is a three-span bridge over the Tugaloo River between Toccoa (Stephens County), Georgia and Westminster (Oconee County), South Carolina.  It's also called the Ramsey-Jarrett Bridge, named after local nearby families whose roots date back to the 1800's.    But at first glance, the first question that pops up is.. where's the middle span of the bridge? In any picture of the bridge, you'll see one southern span on the Georgia side of the river, and another northern span on the South Carolina side, but the span right in the middle where the state line should be, is obviously missing. The locals call it the Broken Bridge. A quick history...  The Tugaloo River is the 45-mile long, middle river that forms the border between Georgia and South Carolina.  It connects the Chattooga-Tallulah Rivers upriver, to the Savannah River downstream.  Basically, there has been a bridge crossing around river mile marker 30 since the 1870's, beginning as a si
Read more