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Summit Bridge

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1958–1959. DE 896 over Chesapeake and Delaware (C&D) Canal

The steel-truss high bridge stands just west of the site of earlier Summit bridges over the Deep Cut of the canal. A four-lane highway bridge here was considered essential for the state's growth. Shrewd Delaware lawmakers forced the federal government to pay by citing the canal company's charter of 1801, which required that company (bought out by the United States in 1919) to provide “good and sufficient bridges across the canal.” To the east stands the Pennsylvania Railroad bridge (1965–1966), at the time the third-longest railroad lift bridge in the world and cited for excellence by the American Institute for Steel Construction. An intriguing iron pivot bridge (1852) just north of the railroad bridge was unfortunately removed in 1967.

Writing Credits

Author: 
W. Barksdale Maynard
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Data

What's Nearby

Lum House (Lums Mill House, Samuel Davies House)
Buck Tavern
Au Clair School (McCoy House)
CHESAPEAKE AND DELAWARE CANAL PUMPHOUSE MUSEUM
BOHEMIA AVENUE BUILDINGS

Citation

W. Barksdale Maynard, "Summit Bridge", [Middletown, Delaware], SAH Archipedia, eds. Gabrielle Esperdy and Karen Kingsley, Charlottesville: UVaP, 2012—, http://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/DE-01-PR9.

Print Source

Cover: Buildings of Delaware

Buildings of Delaware, W. Barksdale Maynard. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2008, 197-197.

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