The Franklin Avenue Bridge, officially the F.W. Cappelen Memorial Bridge, carries Franklin Avenue over the Mississippi River in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It was designed by Frederick William Cappelen, assisted by Kristoffer Olsen Oustad, both of whom were among four important Norwegian-American engineers working in the region at the time. The reinforced-concrete open-spandrel arched structure was completed in 1923. The bridge's overall length is 1054.7 feet (321.47 m), with a central span of 400 feet (122 m). It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1978 along with several other area bridges as part of a multiple-property submission.
The current bridge replaces one built in 1889 and its pilings and foundation can still be seen to the south of the current bridge. During planning of this original bridge there was consideration and debate concerning its possible interference with river navigation.
In the late 1990s, there was an easy way to climb the arches under the bridge and walk along a path that spanned the entire way across the river. Vagrants, graffiti artists, and locals would frequent this area at all times of the day.
Famous quotes containing the words franklin, avenue and/or bridge:
“No nation was ever ruined by trade.”
—Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790)
“Along the avenue of cypresses,
All in their scarlet cloaks and surplices
Of linen, go the chanting choristers,
The priests in gold and black, the villagers. . . .”
—D.H. (David Herbert)
“It launch’d forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself,
Ever unreeling them, ever tirelessly speeding them.
And you O my soul where you stand,
Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space,
Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the spheres to connect them,
Till the bridge you will need be form’d, till the ductile anchor hold,
Till the gossamer thread you fling catch somewhere, O, my soul.”
—Walt Whitman (1819–1892)