a.k.a. The Clay Wade Bailey Bridge

A timeline, to keep various C&O Bridges straight.
1886-1889	The Original C&O Railroad Bridge built
1929	A new railroad bridge is built next to the old one; this new bridge is the current bridge for the railroad.
1929	The original RR bridge is sold to Kentucky; converted for use by auto traffic.
October 19, 1970	Original RR bridge (auto traffic since 1929) is blown up. See pics below.
October 21, 1974	New traffic bridge is opened; named for Clay Wade Bailey, a long time Kentucky Post reporter.

 

Clay Wade Bailey
Image from the Faces and Places Collection of the Mary Ann Mongan Library in Covington

 

Louis Charles Vogt gave us several paintings of industrial scenes. We have seen the two images on the left both described as the C&O Bridge, but have also seen them labeled as New York's Queensborough Bridge. We have more confidence that the image on the right is, indeed, by Vogt of the C&O Bridge.

 

Building the caisson on the Kentucky Side	C & O Bridge Construction (late 1880's)

 

C & O Bridge Construction (late 1880's)

 

The original C&O Railroad Bridge, c. 1890's	An early drawing of the C & O Railroad Bridge

 

Chesapeake and Ohio Bridge, c, 1930

 

Looking toward Covington	note foreground	1929
“Chesapeake” & Ohio Bridge	The Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad Bridge	The Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad Bridge

 

A fascinating image. Note there's ice on the river, a crowd on the shore, and a trolley passing over the old C&O bridge. The steamer you see here, the Cincinnati, was destroyed by the ice of 1917-18, and our speculation, and its just that, speculation, is that you're seeing a crowd watching the last throes of a mighty side wheeler.

 

C & O Bridge, 1937	The C&O Bridges in the 1937 Flood. Looking upstream.	Under the C&O Bridge, looking toward Covington

Construction and grand opening of 1929 Bridge

To the right are the first locomotives, and crews to go over the first 1889 C&O Bridge, and the rebuilt
C&O RR Bridge on April 3, 1929. You can click on the captions under the pictures.

The above four images are all from the 1929 L&N Employees Magazine. The accompanying story is here.

A more detailed story on the rebuilding is from a 1928 Railway Age (pdf).

Just FYI, this detail from a 1909 Sanborn fire map, shows a walking and wagon path on each side of the tracks.

C & O Railway Bridge	Cities Highway Bridge

both from the US Army, Chief of Engineers, 1934

 

C & O Bridge Traffic, circa 1945		C & O in the 1950's

 

September 12, 1981. The C&O and the L&N pass
on the C& O Bridge Approach.
This pic is a copyrighted photo by Don Faris. Clicking on the thumbnail
will take you to a larger version at railpics.net, where the original resides.

 

Pay attention children, this is called a passenger train. People rode in them.			The L & N had trackage rights over the C & O Bridge. This image is from 1965.

 

          

The End of the C&O Bridge, October 19, 1970
Photos by Jack Klumpe

 

Same pic as above right, except in color.
Thanks! to Mike Martin for this one.

Chessie crosses into Kentucky	Looking toward Ohio

 

In the 1971 re-build

 

This is the U. P. Schenck, built in 1876, and later re-named the Longfellow. There aren't pictures
of her as the Longfellow. In a thick fog on the morning of March 8, 1895, she hit the C&O
Railroad Bridge, and sank in three minutes. The story is here. The New York Times version of the
story is here (pdf), and has a partial list passengers who drowned.

The river men blamed the bridge piers.

The Cincinnati Transit site has a page on the history of the
C&O Bridge, here, and on the Clay Wade Bailey Bridge, here.