Chain Bridge (Potomac River)

Chain Bridge
File:Chain bridge 20051111 132258 2.jpg The Chain Bridge, from Little Falls; the Arlington Bluff is on the right, and the District of Columbia on the left.
Coordinates
Crosses	Potomac River
Locale	Washington, D.C.
Characteristics
Design	Girder
Material	Steel
History
Construction end	1939

The Chain Bridge is a viaduct which crosses the Potomac River at Little Falls in Washington, D.C. It carries close to 22,000 cars a day. It connects Washington with affluent sections of Arlington and Fairfax counties in Virginia. On the Washington side, the bridge connects with Canal Road. Left turns onto the Clara Barton Parkway from the Chain Bridge are prohibited, but the reverse is permitted. On the Virginia side, the bridge connects with State Route 123 (Chain Bridge Road), which provides access to the George Washington Memorial Parkway.

The Chain Bridge has three lanes (of which the center is reversible) and can be safely accessed by pedestrians and cyclists. The pedestrian sidewalk provides access to the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal towpath via a ramp.

History

File:Chain Bridge over the Potomac04112v.jpg

Chain Bridge during Civil War

File:Potomac Chain Bridge drawing Kollner 1839.jpg

1839 drawing of the Chain Bridge

File:Chain bridge 20051111 143554 2.jpg

Underside of the Chain Bridge

The first bridge at the location was opened on July 3, 1797. It was a wooden covered bridge, and rotted and collapsed in 1804. The second bridge, of similar type, burned six months after it was built.

The third bridge was built four years later in 1808, and is where the bridge received its name. It was a chain suspension bridge, using 1¼ inch bars. It was designed by Judge James E. Finley, and was 136 feet long by 15 feet wide. It was destroyed by flood in 1810 or 1812. The fourth bridge was also a chain suspension bridge, and though damaged by floods in 1815, it lasted until 1840. The fifth bridge was built in 1840, and made of chain and wood. This span collapsed in 1852.

It was replaced by a crossbeam truss structure that resembled a long garden arbor or pergola, but retained its historical name. During the American Civil War, the Chain Bridge was a popular place for the Union Army to access the countryside encampments from Fairfax County. The bridge is the site of the first Union Army Balloon Corps balloon crossing, which took place overnight on October 12, 1861, conducted by Professor Thaddeus S. C. Lowe and a band of handlers who had to precariously traverse the outsides of the fully trellised bridge. In a nine-hour ordeal, the balloon Union was fully inflated in Washington and walked out to the battlefield at Lewinsville, Virginia.

The truss bridge was swept away in an 1870 flood, and a lightweight iron truss replacement was erected in 1872-1874. Traffic restrictions were placed on the bridge in the 1920s, and it was fully closed following the record flood of 1936.

The eighth and present version of the bridge is a continuous steel girder structure, completed in 1939 on piers dating from the 1870s.

Photo gallery

• Potomac Chain Bridge drawing Kollner 1839.jpg

  Chain Bridge, 1839

• Chain Bridge over the Potomac04112v.jpg

  Chain Bridge during Civil War

• View across Chain Bridge over the Potomac04113v.jpg

  Chain Bridge during Civil War

• Chain bridge, Washington, D.C. 34797v.jpg

  Chain Bridge during Civil War

• Chain bridge 20051111 143554 2.jpg

  Underside of Chain Bridge, 2005

• Chain bridge 20051111 132258 2.jpg

  Chain Bridge from upstream, 2005

External links

• Where Are The Chains On Chain Bridge?
• History of the Chain Bridge, from the Johns Hopkins University Press