The Swinging Bridge in Maine was originally built in 1892 for workers walking from the Topsham Heights neighborhood to Cabot Mill in Brunswick, over the Androscoggin River. The bridge was constructed by John A. Roebling's Sons Company, the engineering firm that designed and built the Brooklyn Bridge in New York City and other bridges around the world. The bridge's history is closely tied to the French Canadian heritage of Topsham and Brunswick.
In the early 1900s, the present steel towers replaced the original timber-framed towers. A flood destroyed the superstructure of the bridge in 1936 and it was rebuilt in 1938 by the WPA. The current cables date all the way back to when the bridge was first built.
The towns of Brunswick and Topsham created a joint committee to repair the bridge in 2000. The bridge renovation was completed in December 2006. Public parks on each side of the bridge were completed in summer 2007.
A reopening and dedication ceremony was held on September 8, 2007, with two of John A. Roebling's great-great-great granddaughters in attendance.
The Swinging Bridge was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in January 2004. It was dedicated as a Maine Historic Civil Engineering Landmark in May 2011 by the Maine Section of the American Society of Civil Engineers.
The bridge is set to be a part of the new fully accessible Androscoggin Riverwalk currently being designed. Completion of the project is anticipated within three to five years.
Famous quotes containing the words swinging and/or bridge:
“Masts in the offing wagged their tops;
The swinging waves pealed on the shore;
The saffron beach, all diamond drops
And beads of surge, prolonged the roar.”
—John Davidson (1857–1909)
“Crime seems to change character when it crosses a bridge or a tunnel. In the city, crime is taken as emblematic of class and race. In the suburbs, though, it’s intimate and psychological—resistant to generalization, a mystery of the individual soul.”
—Barbara Ehrenreich (b. 1941)