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Photo, Print, Drawing Cooper's Tubular Arch Bridge, Spanning Old Erie Canal north of Linden Street, Fayetteville, Onondaga County, NY Hill Street Bridge

[ Photos from Survey HAER NY-291  ]

More Resources

[ Drawings from Survey HAER NY-291  ]
[ Data Pages from Survey HAER NY-291  ]
[ Photo Captions from Survey HAER NY-291  ]

About this Item

Title

  • Cooper's Tubular Arch Bridge, Spanning Old Erie Canal north of Linden Street, Fayetteville, Onondaga County, NY

Other Title

  • Hill Street Bridge

Names

  • Historic American Engineering Record, creator
  • Cooper, William B.
  • Nash, Melvin A.
  • Central New York State Park and Recreation Commission
  • Office of the New York State Engineer and Surveyor
  • Chamberlin, William P., historian
  • Bodensiek, Karl N., field team supervisor
  • Schweyer, Caroline, field team
  • Bing, Wang, field team
  • Lowe, Jet, photographer
  • Rosario-Lluveras, Luis G., delineator
  • DeLony, Eric N., project manager
  • New York State Department of Transportation, sponsor

Created / Published

  • Documentation compiled after 1968

Headings

  • -  iron truss bridges
  • -  reinforced concrete construction
  • -  concrete abutments
  • -  ashlar
  • -  Phoenix columns
  • -  transportation
  • -  bowstring trusses
  • -  pony truss bridges
  • -  pedestrian bridges
  • -  New York--Onondaga County--Fayetteville

Latitude / Longitude

  • 43.04398,-76.0384

Notes

  • -  Significance: Cooper's Tubular Arch Bridge was built in 1886 for the Town of Canajoharie, New York by Melvin A. Nash, a Fort Edward, New York bridge builder. It is the only extant example of superstructures fabricated on the 1873 patent of civil engineer William B. Cooper, then employed on the New York State Canals. In 1975, the bridge was acquired by the Central New York State Park and Recreation Commission and moved to the Old Erie Canal State Park in DeWitt, where it now carries pedestrians and service vehicles across a restored portion of the original canal. First built in the early 1870s by canal contractors, Cooper's design was later manufactures commercially by himself in partnership with Nash, and then by Nash alone. His design was one of a variety of trusses of the bowstring and tied arch forms widely used for small highway and street crossings during the mid-to-late nineteenth century. The configuration of its trusses places it in a direct line of descendance from the arched trusses of New York engineer and inventor Squire Whipple, whose design was used for many years as a canal standard. The details of Cooper's bridge and the patent upon which it is based, were a reasoned solution to problems believed to have been associated with other tubular arch bridges of the period. The bridge at De Witt is one of a small number of patented cast and wrought-iron bridges that survive in the United States, and one of the few with a strong Erie Canal association. From its inception, the Erie Canal was a proving ground for engineering innovation, and Cooper's design falls securely within that tradition.
  • -  Unprocessed Field note material exists for this structure: N382
  • -  Survey number: HAER NY-291
  • -  Building/structure dates: 1886 Initial Construction
  • -  Building/structure dates: 1975-1976 Subsequent Work
  • -  Building/structure dates: 1977 Subsequent Work

Medium

  • Photo(s): 12
  • Measured Drawing(s): 3
  • Data Page(s): 18
  • Photo Caption Page(s): 1

Call Number/Physical Location

  • HAER NY,34-DEWI,1-

Source Collection

  • Historic American Engineering Record (Library of Congress)

Repository

Control Number

  • ny1774

Rights Advisory

Online Format

  • image
  • pdf

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  • Call Number: HAER NY,34-DEWI,1-
  • Access Advisory: ---

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Cite This Item

Citations are generated automatically from bibliographic data as a convenience, and may not be complete or accurate.

Chicago citation style:

Historic American Engineering Record, Creator, William B Cooper, Melvin A Nash, Central New York State Park And Recreation Commission, Office Of The New York State Engineer And Surveyor, William P Chamberlin, Karl N Bodensiek, et al., Lowe, Jet, photographer. Cooper's Tubular Arch Bridge, Spanning Old Erie Canal north of Linden Street, Fayetteville, Onondaga County, NY. Fayetteville Montgomery County Canajoharie New York Onondaga County, 1968. Documentation Compiled After. Photograph. https://aj.sunback.homes/item/ny1774/.

APA citation style:

Historic American Engineering Record, C., Cooper, W. B., Nash, M. A., Central New York State Park And Recreation Commission, Office Of The New York State Engineer And Surveyor, Chamberlin, W. P. [...] New York State Department Of Transportation, S., Lowe, J., photographer. (1968) Cooper's Tubular Arch Bridge, Spanning Old Erie Canal north of Linden Street, Fayetteville, Onondaga County, NY. Fayetteville Montgomery County Canajoharie New York Onondaga County, 1968. Documentation Compiled After. [Photograph] Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://aj.sunback.homes/item/ny1774/.

MLA citation style:

Historic American Engineering Record, Creator, et al., photographer by Lowe, Jet. Cooper's Tubular Arch Bridge, Spanning Old Erie Canal north of Linden Street, Fayetteville, Onondaga County, NY. Documentation Compiled After. Photograph. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, <aj.sunback.homes/item/ny1774/>.