Jax Stumpes: Kinzua Dam and Kinzua Viaduct (8/14/2023)

Monday, August 14, 2023

Kinzua Dam and Kinzua Viaduct (8/14/2023)

Monday, August 14, 2023 (continued)
Entering Pennsylvania, we stopped in Bradford at the University of Pittsburgh - Bradford. In October 2021, we toured the Piper Aviation Museum in Lock Haven, PA, and had always meant to see the site

of the original Taylor/Piper Cub Factory.

Monument (2006) at the site of the Taylor
Aircraft Company that manufactured the
Taylor Cub designed by C Gilbert Taylor and
largely financed by William T Piper; the factory
(1929) was destroyed by fire in 1937;
Piper moved the company to Lock Haven
and Taylor had already left in 1935 to start
Taylorcraft Company in Alliance, Ohio

Bronze model of a Taylor Cub

Blaisdell Hall sits on the site of the factory, and the
university campus is located on the site of Harri Emery Airport

Ha! Kinzua Dam and Kinzua Viaduct are 35 miles apart!

Stopped at the Allegheny Reservoir Overlook in Warren, PA

This is the reservoir that flooded Hodinöhsö:ni'/Six Nations
communities and one-third of its land from Pennsylvania into
New York, including most of the Cornplanter Tract,
a grant made by the state legislature to Cornplanter after
the Revolutionary War to him and his heirs "forever"

View of Kinzua Dam (1960-1965) was built for flood control
of the Allegheny River and hydroelectric power, both
of which benefit the city of Pittsburgh

A closer look at Kinzua Dam, which is both a concrete and earth embankment dam

Kinzua Bridge State Park Visitor Center (2016)

First view of the former Kinzua Viaduct (1900), once the
longest and tallest railroad structure at 2,053'/626 m long and
301'/92 m high, was partially destroyed by a tornado in 2003

Thomas Kane, as president of the
New York, Lake Erie and Western
Coal and Railroad, created a
shortcut across north central PA by
building a railroad trestle over
the Kinzua Creek valley

Civil engineer Octave Chanute worked with
Adolphus Bonzana to design the bridge, using the
Phoenix Column/a hollow wrought-iron known for
its strength that was developed by Bonzano

The 1882 trestle was built in 94 days by using a traveling crane rather than scaffolding to build the 20 towers. The Erie Railroad took over in 1893.

As locomotives became heavier, the bridge was dismantled in 1900, and a new bridge (by C R Grimm) was built with steel. However, it was decided to use the bolts from the old bridge.

The Erie Railroad sold the bridge to a salvage company in 1959, who decided the bridge should not be dismantled. The Kinzua Bridge State Park was established in 1963 to make the viaduct a tourist attraction. Engineers were working to reinforce the bridge in 2003, when a tornado came to lift and twist 11 of the 20 towers, leaving three remaining at the north end and six at the south end.