Kanawha Boulevard Bridge - Charleston WV

City:: Charleston, WV
Site Type:: Infrastructure and Utilities, Roads, Bridges, and Tunnels
New Deal Agencies:: Public Works Administration (PWA), Public Works Funding
Completed:: 1938
Quality of Information:: Moderate
Site Survival:: Extant

Description

The Public Works Administration (PWA) funded the construction of the Kanawha Boulevard Bridge in Charleston, Kanawha County. Located at the point where Elk River meets Kanawha River, the bridge was built in 1938 and rebuilt in 1984.

Billy-Joe Peyton (2013) writes that “Construction funds first became available in August 1937 after the Roosevelt administration approved a $450,000 PWA grant to partially cover the costs to erect a 500-foot bridge over Elk River, which consulting engineer C.P. Fortnoy claimed to be longest continuous girder span in the world. Requests for bids on the bridge were delivered from the PWA regional office in Chicago in mid-December 1937, and the bid opening occurred on January 6, 1938. By March of that year the city had acquired all rights-of-way for the bridge project, except for one parcel owned by the Dickinson family along Elk River. Workers poured the first concrete in mid-April 1938, and in August of that year the center span was raised.”