Walnut Street Bridge (Tennessee)
Encyclopedia
Truss bridge
A truss bridge is a bridge composed of connected elements which may be stressed from tension, compression, or sometimes both in response to dynamic loads. Truss bridges are one of the oldest types of modern bridges...
that spans the Tennessee River
Tennessee River
The Tennessee River is the largest tributary of the Ohio River. It is approximately 652 miles 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...
in Chattanooga, Tennessee
Chattanooga, Tennessee
Chattanooga is the fourth-largest city in the US state of Tennessee , with a population of 169,887. It is the seat of Hamilton County...
.
Built in 1890, it was the first to connect Chattanooga's downtown with the North Shore. According to the plaque on the bridge, Edwin Thatcher was the chief engineer for the bridge. The bridge's superstructure was assembled by the Smith Bridge Company of Toledo, Ohio
Toledo, Ohio
Toledo is the fourth most populous city in the U.S. state of Ohio and is the county seat of Lucas County. Toledo is in northwest Ohio, on the western end of Lake Erie, and borders the State of Michigan...
, which was a prolific late 19th Century bridge builder. The bridge's substructure was constructed by Neeley, Smith and Company of Chattanooga, Tennessee
Chattanooga, Tennessee
Chattanooga is the fourth-largest city in the US state of Tennessee , with a population of 169,887. It is the seat of Hamilton County...
. Most of the parts for the bridge were manufactured by Manly Jail Works of Dalton, Georgia
Dalton, Georgia
Dalton is a city in Whitfield County, Georgia, United States. It is the county seat of Whitfield County and the principal city of the Dalton, Georgia Metropolitan Statistical Area, which encompasses all of both Murray and Whitfield counties. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 33,128...
and shipped to the site by rail. The bridge's main spans are pin-connected Pennsylvania through truss spans. The top chord of these truss spans are configured in five sections, making the spans similar to the Camelback truss design. The bridge is historically significant as an extremely long and old example of its type. According to the Historic American Engineering Record: "The bridge was apparently the first non-military highway bridge across the Tennessee River."
A former Union officer from Ann Arbor, Michigan, William Andrew Slayton (1854–1935), was a stone contractor, lived in the stone house at 533 Barton Ave, the house known for years by later inhabitants as the location of the "Little Art Shop." Similarly to Washington Roebling
Washington Roebling
Washington Augustus Roebling was an American civil engineer best known for his work on the Brooklyn Bridge, which was initially designed by his father John A. Roebling.-Education and military service:...
and the Brooklyn Bridge, he could overlook the project from his window. Many of the low stone walls in North Chattanooga are made up of the remnants of stones that split too small for use in the piers. Subdivision plats in Chattanooga suggest that Slayton developed some areas to facilitate the hauling of materials from quarries in N AL, and Slayton St and Slayton Ave are found near the current public library location on Broad Street. Slayton's obituary fails to note that there is no stone on his grave at Chattanooga Memorial near Red Bank, TN.
The commonly-known "county bridge" connected the predominantly White city on the south side of the Tennessee River
Tennessee River
The Tennessee River is the largest tributary of the Ohio River. It is approximately 652 miles 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...
with the large Black work force on the north side ("North Shore") in Hill City, a town that was subsumed into Chattanooga in 1912.
Two black men were lynched
Lynching in the United States
Lynching, the practice of killing people by extrajudicial mob action, occurred in the United States chiefly from the late 18th century through the 1960s. Lynchings took place most frequently in the South from 1890 to the 1920s, with a peak in the annual toll in 1892.It is associated with...
on the bridge: Alfred Blount on February 14, 1893, was hanged from the first span for allegedly attacking a white woman; and Ed Johnson
Lynching of Ed Johnson
In 1906, a young black man named Ed Johnson was murdered by a lynch mob in his home town of Chattanooga, Tennessee. He had been sentenced to death for the rape of Nevada Taylor, but Justice John Marshall Harlan of the United States Supreme Court had issued a stay of execution...
on March 19, 1906, was hanged from the second span, also for allegedly attacking a white woman. Johnson's lynching initiated a court case (United States v. Shipp
United States v. Shipp
United States v. Shipp, 203 U.S. 563, was a ruling of the Supreme Court of the United States with regard to events surrounding a lynching in Tennessee. It is the only Supreme Court criminal trial in its history.-Background:...
) that went all the way to the Supreme Court
Supreme Court of the United States
The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court in the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all state and federal courts, and original jurisdiction over a small range of cases...
.
The bridge was closed to motor vehicles in 1978, and sat in disuse and disrepair for nearly a decade. Repairs and structural modifications have been made to turn the bridge
Bridge
A bridge is a structure built to span physical obstacles such as a body of water, valley, or road, for the purpose of providing passage over the obstacle...
into what is now a pedestrian walkway. The 2,376 foot (720 m) span is one of the longest pedestrian bridges in the world and sits near the heart of a massive, recently completed urban renewal
Urban renewal
Urban renewal is a program of land redevelopment in areas of moderate to high density urban land use. Renewal has had both successes and failures. Its modern incarnation began in the late 19th century in developed nations and experienced an intense phase in the late 1940s – under the rubric of...
project. The bridge is well-loved by local residents and very popular among tourists.
From December 2009 to May 2010 the bridge's deteriorating asphalt surface was replaced with wood planking.
External links
- Katy Trail bridge profile
- Lynching of Alfred Blount
- Lynching of Ed Johnson
- The Killing Bridge
- The 1907 Trial of Sheriff Joseph Shipp
- Historic Bridges of Michigan and Elsewhere Page Discussion of the bridge's historic significance and numerous photos.
- Historic American Engineering Record (HAER) Entry Historic overview and documentation for the bridge.