The Gay Street Bridge is a vehicle

bridge A bridge is a structure built to span a physical obstacle (such as a body of water, valley, road, or rail) without blocking the way underneath. It is constructed for the purpose of providing passage over the obstacle, which is usually somethi ...

that crosses the

Tennessee River The Tennessee River is the largest tributary of the Ohio River. It is approximately long and is located in the southeastern United States in the Tennessee Valley. The river was once popularly known as the Cherokee River, among other names, ...

Knoxville, Tennessee Knoxville is a city in and the county seat of Knox County, Tennessee, Knox County in the U.S. state of Tennessee. As of the 2020 United States census, Knoxville's population was 190,740, making it the largest city in the East Tennessee Grand Di ...

, United States. Completed in 1898, the bridgeMartha Carver, ''Tennessee's Survey Report for Historic Highway Bridges: Pre-1946 Masonry Arch, Timber Truss, Metal Truss, Concrete Arch, Metal Arch and Suspension Bridges'' (Nashville, Tenn.: Tennessee Department of Transportation, 2008), pp. 384–386. is the oldest of four vehicle bridges connecting Downtown Knoxville with

South Knoxville South Knoxville is the section of Knoxville, Tennessee, United States, that lies south of the Tennessee River. It is concentrated along Chapman Highway (US 441), Alcoa Highway (US 129), Maryville Pike ( SR 33), Sevierville Pike, and adjacent roads ...

, the other three being the

Henley Street Bridge The Henley Bridge, sometimes referred to as Henley Street Bridge, is a vehicle bridge that crosses the Tennessee River in Knoxville, Tennessee, United States. Completed in 1931, the bridgeMartha Carver, ''Tennessee's Survey Report for Historic H ...

, the James E. "Buck" Karnes Bridge ( Alcoa Highway), and the James C. Ford Memorial Bridge.

Design

The bridge is a

steel Steel is an alloy made up of iron with added carbon to improve its strength and fracture resistance compared to other forms of iron. Many other elements may be present or added. Stainless steels that are corrosion- and oxidation-resistant ty ...

spandrel A spandrel is a roughly triangular space, usually found in pairs, between the top of an arch and a rectangular frame; between the tops of two adjacent arches or one of the four spaces between a circle within a square. They are frequently fill ...

-braced (

cantilever A cantilever is a rigid structural element that extends horizontally and is supported at only one end. Typically it extends from a flat vertical surface such as a wall, to which it must be firmly attached. Like other structural elements, a canti ...

)

arch An arch is a vertical curved structure that spans an elevated space and may or may not support the weight above it, or in case of a horizontal arch like an arch dam, the hydrostatic pressure against it. Arches may be synonymous with vaul ...

ed design with a

concrete Concrete is a composite material composed of fine and coarse aggregate bonded together with a fluid cement (cement paste) that hardens (cures) over time. Concrete is the second-most-used substance in the world after water, and is the most wi ...

deck. There are five arched

truss A truss is an assembly of ''members'' such as beams, connected by ''nodes'', that creates a rigid structure. In engineering, a truss is a structure that "consists of two-force members only, where the members are organized so that the assembl ...

es, each long, and two approach spans at each end, all supported by a foundation of stone

piers Piers may refer to: * Pier, a raised structure over a body of water * Pier (architecture), an architectural support * Piers (name), a given name and surname (including lists of people with the name) * Piers baronets, two titles, in the baronetages ...

. The deck is wide, and consists of two vehicle lanes, each flanked by a pedestrian sidewalk. The bridge originally contained trolley tracks, but these were removed in 1938.

History

The first bridge across the Tennessee River at this site was a temporary

pontoon bridge A pontoon bridge (or ponton bridge), also known as a floating bridge, uses float (nautical), floats or shallow-draft (hull), draft boats to support a continuous deck for pedestrian and vehicle travel. The buoyancy of the supports limits the maxi ...

built during the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states th ...

. It was followed by a permanent bridge with stone supporting piers, built by

Union Union commonly refers to: * Trade union, an organization of workers * Union (set theory), in mathematics, a fundamental operation on sets Union may also refer to: Arts and entertainment Music * Union (band), an American rock group ** ''Un ...

General

Ambrose E. Burnside Ambrose Everett Burnside (May 23, 1824 – September 13, 1881) was an American army officer and politician who became a senior Union general in the Civil War and three times Governor of Rhode Island, as well as being a successful inventor ...

, that was washed away in a

flood A flood is an overflow of water ( or rarely other fluids) that submerges land that is usually dry. In the sense of "flowing water", the word may also be applied to the inflow of the tide. Floods are an area of study of the discipline hydrol ...

in March 1867. Knox County built a

covered bridge A covered bridge is a timber-truss bridge with a roof, decking, and siding, which in most covered bridges create an almost complete enclosure. The purpose of the covering is to protect the wooden structural members from the weather. Uncovered woo ...

at the site, which opened on May 2, 1875, but it was blown down by a

tornado A tornado is a violently rotating column of air that is in contact with both the surface of the Earth and a cumulonimbus cloud or, in rare cases, the base of a cumulus cloud. It is often referred to as a twister, whirlwind or cyclone, altho ...

shortly afterward. The county sold the surviving piers and rights-of-way to G. W. Saulpaw, who built a wooden

Howe truss A Howe truss is a truss bridge consisting of chords, verticals, and diagonals whose vertical members are in tension and whose diagonal members are in compression. The Howe truss was invented by William Howe in 1840, and was widely used as a bridg ...

bridge at the site in 1880. Saulpaw's bridge stood until 1898, when it was demolished after the completion of the Gay Street Bridge. Gay-street-saulpaw-bridge-tn1

The Gay Street Bridge was designed by Charles E. Fowler, chief engineer of the

Youngstown Bridge Company The American Bridge Company is a heavy/civil construction firm that specializes in building and renovating bridges and other large, complex structures. Founded in 1900, the company is headquartered in Coraopolis, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Pitts ...

Ohio Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...

.Designated Properties: Knoxville Historic Zoning Commission
, Knoxville-Knox County Metropolitan Planning Commission website, accessed October 15, 2009 Fowler later boasted that he had hastily sketched the bridge's design—which was chosen over three other bids—on the back of an envelope during his train ride to Knoxville to meet with county officials. Construction of the bridge, which was supervised by Fowler, began in 1897. Due to the scarcity of certain building materials during the

Spanish–American War , partof = the Philippine Revolution, the decolonization of the Americas, and the Cuban War of Independence , image = Collage infobox for Spanish-American War.jpg , image_size = 300px , caption = (clock ...

, Fowler was forced to modify his original design, and was constantly bickering with Knox County officials over who should pay the extra costs. The Gay Street Bridge opened to traffic on July 9, 1898.Gay Street Bridge
Historic Bridges of the United States website, accessed October 15, 2009 Knox County issued a statement proclaiming the bridge "for the use of all the world except Spain," in reference to the war which had been raging throughout the year. Engineering journals such as ''

Engineering News ''Engineering News-Record'' (widely known as ''ENR'') is an American weekly magazine that provides news, analysis, data and opinion for the construction industry worldwide. It is widely regarded as one of the construction industry's most authori ...

'' and ''Bridge Engineering'' praised the bridge's combination of safety and aesthetics. Because the 1898 bridge included trolley tracks, its construction accelerated residential development in the

Island Home Park Island Home Park is a neighborhood in Knoxville, Tennessee, United States, located in the southeastern part of the city along the Tennessee River. Developed as a streetcar suburb in the early 1900s, the neighborhood retains most of its original ho ...

area on the south side of the river, which previously had been isolated from downtown Knoxville. After receiving poor safety ratings, the bridge was extensively repaired in a project that required its closure from December 2001 to April 2004. Repairs included replacement of

rust Rust is an iron oxide, a usually reddish-brown oxide formed by the reaction of iron and oxygen in the catalytic presence of water or air moisture. Rust consists of hydrous iron(III) oxides (Fe2O3·nH2O) and iron(III) oxide-hydroxide (FeO(OH ...

ed pin joints and bearings and replacement of concrete on the bridge deck.Historic Gay Street bridge reopens Monday
, City of Knoxville press release, April 12, 2004

Design

History

See also

References

Further reading