American Bridge Company Sites

The Bourne Bridge across the Cape Cod canal was built for the US Army Corps of Engineers, with funding from the Public Works Administration (PWA). It was part of a very large project to improve the canal and add three bridges across it; the PWA allotment was $6,138,000 for the entire project.  (Short & Stanley-Brown 1939) The project began in 1933 and the bridge opened in 1935. The contractor was American Bridge Company of New York, New York and the engineering was done by Fay, Spofford, and Thorndike of Boston, Massachusetts (historicbridges.com) The Bourne Bridge won the American Institute of Steel Construction's Class "A" Award...

"The Outer Drive Bridge, also known as the Link Bridge was started in 1929 and completed in 1937 as one of the Public Works Administration's public projects in Chicago...While the completion of the Outer Drive was considered one of the most important projects in the PWA it took many years to complete. A main issue was funding. Due to a lack of provided security by Chicago Park Districts, the allotment for the bridge was revoked until the districts were all in position to comply. The total cost of the Outer Drive is estimated at $11,563,000." (wikipedia.org) "After multiple delays, the Link Bridge...

The San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, one of the most famous bridges in the world and the key transportation link in the Bay Area, was built under the New Deal with funding from the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC). The 8-mile long bridge (43,500 feet) consists of two parts, both anchored to Yerba Buena Island in the middle of San Francisco Bay.  The western half is an elegant suspension bridge (whose beauty has always suffered by comparison with the Golden Gate Bridge, but gained a delightful electronic light show in the 2010s). The longer  eastern half was a classic cantilever bridge, ungainly but...