Nostalgia & History > Nov 30, '1988: Rockville Bridge's east abutment

Back in November, 1988 while checking out Rockville Bridge I happened to notice what I thought at first was graffiti was in reality a historical record of significant dates in its history. Upon closer inspection there were high water marks from floods that occurred. Those dates were June 2, 1889, May 22 1894, a high water mark that looks like '31 and another that I couldn't make out. There are also two metal plaques. The smaller one designates Rockville Bridge as a Historical Civil Engineering Landmark by the American Society of Engineers in 1979. Their criteria was that the structure has to be over fifty years old and still maintained. A larger plaques honors the Rockville Bridge contractors Drake & Stratton.

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Interesting details!  Thanks for posting your photo.

Thanks for sharing. What year was the present bridge constructed? I would suppose this would be one of the appproach abutments?

Victor A. Baird
http://www.erstwhilepublications.com



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/07/19 16:36 by wabash2800.

I wonder how Agnes in ‘72 stacked up I know that was the highest mark in Sunbury

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wabash2800 Wrote:
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> Thanks for sharing. What year was the present
> bridge constructed? I would suppose this would be
> one of the appproach abutments?
>
> Victor A. Baird
> http://www.erstwhilepublications.com

From what I found construction was started in 1900 and finally completed on March 30, 1902. Cost for the 100,611 cubic yards of masonary used for building this bridge amounted to $855,000.

The top High Water mark is from 1936, the most severe flood on record for the Susquehanna at Harrisburg. The mark just below that is from 1972, Hurricane Agnes.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/08/19 06:05 by gcw.