CATCHING A RIDE around town in Detroit

I'm going to make things easy on myself for a little while. After posts about bridges, both rural and urban, I'm going to show you street scenes from long ago which feature some form of transportation. I'm not going to be digging deep to provide information about any of the cities or streets. We're just going to step back in time and look at what urban congestion looked like long ago.

Let's start off in Detroit at the "Church and Y. M. C. A. Buliding." Yes, you read that right. "Buliding" is how it is spelled on the front of this card. Who got fired over that mistake? The printer or the proofreader? How many were printed before someone said, "Ummmmm...excuse me. I know I've only got a 6th grade education, but I think the word buliding is wrong."


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Now, lest you believe that is the only typo, I can say with glee, "You're wrong!" Take a look at the back copy for what probably clinched the whole firing episode.


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BRIDGES: Connecting San Francisco to Marin and the East Bay

My final bridge post is of the Golden Gate Bridge connecting San Francisco to Marin County, and the Bay Bridge connecting San Francisco to the East Bay/Oakland.




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The small flat island, which is manmade, is Treasure Island. Originally built as the site for the 1939 Golden Gate International Exposition, it was then to be turned into the terminal for Pan Am. By 1941 TI, as it was known by anyone who worked there, had been turned into a Navy base. In fact, it was from this base that my dad eventually retired from the Navy in a building that still stood from the Exposition. Just across the Bay Bridge in San Francisco at the Ferry Tower is where he had originally joined the Navy. The Bay Area is home no matter how far I may travel from it. 

My dad has memories of going to the Exposition and somewhere I have some old Viewmaster slides of it. I’ll have to dig them out and scan them for a future post. You can read about the Exposition here, here, and here.

BRIDGES: The Golden Gate Under Construction

Of all the bridges in the world the Golden Gate is the most special and beautiful to me. It's constantly changing and fascinating from all angles. I'll admit, when I'm crossing it I'm silently saying to myself, "Oh please don't let the big one hit now." I do not want my last moments on earth to be spent inside a car falling to the cold water below. Still, the view would be nice which is unfortunately what draws so many suicide victims.

The bridge is constantly being painted, a never ending job. Not a job I could fathom doing thanks to my fear of heights. Even more disconcerting would be to have been one of the men who built the bridge. Click here to see a vintage snapshot of a man named Geo. McLeod working on the bridge in 1936.

Construction began on January 5, 1933. The project cost more than $35 million. The Golden Gate Bridge construction project was carried out by the McClintic-Marshall Construction Co., a subsidiary of Bethlehem Steel Corporation founded by Howard H. McClintic and Charles D. Marshall, both of Lehigh University.

Strauss remained head of the project, overseeing day-to-day construction and making some groundbreaking contributions. A graduate of the University of Cincinnati, he placed a brick from his alma mater's demolished McMicken Hall in the south anchorage before the concrete was poured. He innovated the use of movable safety netting beneath the construction site, which saved the lives of many otherwise-unprotected steelworkers. Of eleven men killed from falls during construction, ten were killed (when the bridge was near completion) when the net failed under the stress of a scaffold that had fallen. Nineteen others who were saved by the net over the course of construction became proud members of the (informal) Half Way to Hell Club.

The project was finished by April 1937, $1.3 million under budget.

With the death of Jack Balestreri in April 2012, all workers involved in the original construction are now deceased. (SOURCE: Wikipedia)

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I have crossed beneath the bridge several times aboard ships; twice heading to Hawaii and twice returning. Even in the fog it's mysterious and beautiful. Imagine actually building it.

BRIDGES: Clark's Ferry Bridge Across the Susquehanna

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I know I’ve crossed this bridge many times when I was with my maternal grandparents. My grandfather would want to go “up country” to where he was born and raised. My ancestors go back hundreds of years in Perry County, Pennsylvania and over 100 in Dauphin County. So this bridge would have been one we crossed when heading to a church pot luck my grandfather was fond of. I still have relatives living on the other side of this bridge, but I fear I will never make another trip back to Pennsylvania. I do miss it.

This bridge was replaced in 1986. I've crossed it a few times.

Originally, from what I’m able to find, there was a ferry here established around 1788 by a man named Clark.

(SOURCE: History of Perry County, Pennyslvania)

There was a bridge which preceded this bridge.

One of the oldest crossings over the Susquehanna River is at Clark's Ferry at the southern tip of Duncan Island in Reed Twp., Dauphin County. This location where the Juniata River empties into the Susquehanna River, east of Duncannon, was called  Queenashawakee" by the American Indians, according to "The History and Topography of Dauphin, Cumberland, Franklin, Bedford, Adams, and Perry Counties" written by I. Daniel Rupp and published in 1846.

The site became a fording place on the Huntingdon and Pittsburgh paths for the earliest traders and settlers on their trek westward. The first ferry was established by Daniel Clark in 1788, passed onto his son, John Clark, and then to his son, Robert Clark. In 1808, the ferry became part of the stage coach line to Huntingdon.

In May 1818, a commission was organized to build a bridge across the Susquehanna. Bridge building in those days was an arduous task, and it was not until 1828-29 that the first permanent span was opened.

The bridge belonged to the commonwealth, which built a dam just south of the structure. The dam created a pool of water which was used as part of the state's early canal system. A mule towing-path was attached to the bridge. The covered bridge incurred the ravages of fire and flood but was repaired each time. Most of the bridge was destroyed by fire May 14, 1846, but it was rebuilt.

In 1857, the state sold the entire canal system to the Pennsylvania Railroad, which in 1867, transferred the canal system to a newly organized subsidiary, the Pennsylvania Canal Co.

After the abandonment of the canal system in the early part of the 20th century, the canal company sold the bridge to the Clarks Ferry Bridge Co. in 1915. (In some references Clarks is spelled Clark's.)

The president of the Clarks Ferry Bridge Co. was Harrisburg entrepreneur William Jennings, president of Commonwealth Trust Co. His longtime business associate, Christian W. Lynch, was vice president.

William Wills and P.F. Duncan were secretary and treasurer, respectively. Wills and Duncan were principals in Standard Novelty Co. in Duncannon, which was founded in 1904 and manufactured the famous Lightning Glider sled. The bridge was 2.088 feet long, divided into 10 spans, nine of which were 212 feet long and one 180 feet long. In 1888, it had the reputation of being the longest covered wooden bridge in the world.

Experts estimate that more than 1 million board feet of choice white pine lumber was used in the bridge. The lumber was cut from logs rafted down the river from the great white pine country along the West Branch of the Susquehanna.

The covered bridge served well in its time, but on Feb. 2, 1924, Jennings announced that it would be replaced. He said that span was barely wide enough to permit the crossing of one vehicle at a time.

(SOURCE: Harrisburg Patriot-News)

At one point the bridge shown above was a toll bridge. I live in an area where there are a lot of toll bridges. It’s sometimes fun to think about which route to take around the San Francisco Bay and not have to pay a toll. It’s always a good way to start an argument.


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With so many credit references on the back of this post card I'll just settle with it being ultimately a Curt Teich card since his logo appears on it.

BRIDGES: Donner Lake Bridge

This bridge is personal for me. I love the view of Donner Lake from this angle. My family owned land a few miles west of this bridge for almost 40 years. They built a cabin which we used all year long.

In the summer I loved driving along this road with the windows down, the warm summer mountain breeze flowing through the car. On this road you pass by a stone wall that was built by Chinese labor when they were constructing the Central Pacific Railroad. There's a rock that calls out to rock climbers for much of the year. You'll find cyclists climbing from the lake to the peak still high above where this shot was taken.




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At some point a bus went off this road into the gully right before the bridge. That bus lay there for decades slowly rusting, its once vivid colors turning muted. There was also an old rusted hulk of a car. Understand that at one time this was the route across the Sierras from California to Nevada. The eventual Interstate 80 was built on the hillside to the left where you can see what was possibly the beginning of the construction.

And of course this is the lake made famous by its namesake, the Donner Party. If you don't know the history of the Donner family and their fellow travelers you can read about it here. And if you're going to be in the area be sure to visit the California State Park where you can walk a path through the area where the families lived during the dreadful winter.

At the eastern end of the lake is the bustling town of Gateway with Truckee nearby. Both towns have changed dramatically and look nothing like what I fell in love with in the mid-1960s. At that time neither town would have been called bustling. Many an evening was spent at a restaurant in Truckee flirting with the waiters who were at heart nothing more than ski bums. And many a late night I had to come back over the pass to the cabin in a snowstorm. Now I'm older and wiser.