When the best part of Virginia went West in 1863, she took some pretty amazing bridges with her, including several located in the city of Wheeling, West Virginia. The oldest, the Elm Grove Arch Bridge, was built in 1817. Another remarkable span, the Wheeling Suspension Bridge, was begun in 1847. And although it was constructed after West Virginia’s founding, there’s a third impressive bridge hidden away in this city: the Wheeling Stone Arch Bridge that carries Main Street over Big Wheeling Creek.
In the heart of the historic city of Wheeling, West Virginia, a beautiful old stone bridge carries Main Street across Wheeling Creek.
The bridge is the third attempt to span this section of Wheeling Creek. The first attempt, a covered bridge built in 1815 that was actually the first bridge ever built in Wheeling, was swept away by ice. A second bridge, stone this time, was built here in 1832, but it also failed to stand the test of time. The current picturesque arch was made to last in 1891, however, and last it has - for more than a century of heavy use.
Exactly 771 stone blocks, each weighing at least two tons, were used in the construction of the bridge, and these rocks were quarried and cut locally, at a Wheeling stoneyard located at 29th and Eoff Streets. The bridge's keystone, placed with ceremony on December 17, 1891, is the forty-third stone from the north, at the crown of the arch.
Perhaps one of the best views of this beautiful, historically significant bridge is from the next bridge over, where Market Street crosses Wheeling Creek just upriver from Main Street.
Another interesting thing about the location of this Main Street bridge: it was right here on the north bank of Wheeling Creek just at the base of the bridge that the American Steamboat was born in 1815. In fact, the builder of that first American steamboat, Henry Shreve, was also the man who built the original wooden covered bridge mentioned earlier, the first bridge to span this section of Wheeling Creek!
To visit this amazing location yourself, find it here on Google Maps. Have you crossed the Wheeling Creek Stone Arch Bridge on Main Street in Wheeling? Did you realize it was once the longest single-arch stone bridge in the country? That seems uniquely, fitting, doesn’t it – a foreshadowing of another record-holding single-arched West Virginia bridge to come.
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