Historic bridge videos

This rare wrought-iron truss bridge, now on the Gateway State Trail, is featured in a MnDOT video.

Video documentation posted on the web is an accessible, and increasingly easy way, to share information with the public. In addition to the New York State Department of Transportation’s film shorts in response to the replacement of the Lake Champlain Bridge, several other state transportation agencies have produced videos on historic bridge topics. Some efforts were mitigation for bridge demolition while others celebrate successes (a bridge rehabilitation project) or a state’s engineering heritage.

Examples include:

• Washington DOT (WSDOT) has produced, or is in process of producing, a few videos on historic bridges. One example, the Manette Bridge history video was completed as mitigation for a historic bridge that was demolished. The video is linked on WSDOT’s website (scroll down to bulleted list of projects). A video on the life of Lacey Murrow, one of the DOT’s early directors responsible for the construction of several of Washington’s more famous bridges, is coming to their web page soon (Source: Scott Williams, WSDOT)
• Arkansas State Highway and Transportation Department (AHTD) has done a few videos over the last few years to showcase its work, including an Emmy nominated documentary on Arkansas’ historic bridges (Source: Robert Scoggin, AHTD).
• Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT) made a video of the recently rehabilitated Gateway Trail Bridge, a historic iron truss that was disassembled, relocated and restored for trail use. It is available on MnDOT’s Facebook page – see May 7 posting or click to view The Gateway Trail Iron Bridge: Our Engineering Heritage (MnDOT video). I previously blogged about this here.
• The Lake Champlain Bridge commemorative website, also described in a previous blog, is available here.

If you know of other historic bridge videos, please add a comment below.