Rock Creek and Potomac Parkway: Shoreham Hill Bridge - Washington DC

State:: WASHINGTON-DC
Site Type:: Parks and Recreation, Infrastructure and Utilities, Park Roads and Bridges, Roads, Bridges, and Tunnels
New Deal Agencies:: National Park Service (NPS), Conservation and Public Lands, Territories & Reservations, District of Columbia Commissioners (DC only)
Started:: 1938
Completed:: 1938
Contractor:: Bahen and Wright
Quality of Information:: Very Good
Marked:: No
Site Survival:: Extant

Description

The Shoreham Hill bridge was constructed in 1938 as part of the completion of the Rock Creek and Potomac Parkway project of the 1930s. It lies just south of the large Connecticut and Massachusetts Avenue bridges. It is the third and most northerly of three parkway crossings of Rock Creek by the parkway.

The Shoreham Hill bridge replaced a steel truss bridge of 1929, which was considered by the National Park Service (NPS) as a traffic hazard and out of keeping with the established look of the parkway and its other bridges. In 1937, the NPS and the DC Board of Public Works allocated $112,000 from their road and trail funds for a new bridge.

The bridge is a reinforced concrete arch structure, with stone facing of blue-gray mica schist – a design that blend well with the background scenery of the parkway. The span of the bridge is 90 feet and the total length is 220 feet. It is 52 feet wide, include two sidewalks. It was renovated in 1987.