Published under the title, “A Visit to the Kinzua Bridge”
in The Kane Republic in 2004
On Sunday, March 28, 2004, I made a day trip with my father and his mother and father to the Kinzua Bridge State Park in McKean County. We took a scenic drive through Pennsylvania’s beautiful early spring countryside, heading East from our family’s dairy farm, with just the intent of a nice ride. The trip became more memorable when we decided to visit the park and see the remains of the bridge. We had been there several times since I was born but the last time stands out the most. It was a few years back and, luckily, the four of us had walked the bridge; as I am sure many are proud to say they did. The new sight, however, was shocking. The turn up the drive revealed uprooted trees left to rot. But the strangest sight of all was the once green valley blown through with nature’s raging storm. One could not help but feel something.
The Kinzua Viaduct was built originally in 1882, and its length of 2,053 feet and height of 301 feet made it the highest railroad bridge in the world. The original iron structure was replaced with steel in 1900 to make way for heavier trains. In June of 1959 trains no longer used the bridge and in 1963 a law was signed by Governor William Scranton that turned the surrounding area into the Kinzua Bridge State Park. The park opened in 1970 and in 1987 trains traveling from Kane bore tourists and sight seers along to see the bridge as they made their way through Allegheny National Forest. In 2002 inspection deemed that the bridge needed construction to restore the structure and the trains were put on hold. Unknowingly, these would be the last to pass over the old track across the bridge. A fierce storm that passed from the West grew worse and by the time it reached the park a tornado was created. The winds took the middle section of the bridge and destroyed all trees in the storms path. The remains and damage were before us on this early spring day; a bridge, complete no longer, just the still, standing ends and the battered and twisted wreckage below.
There were others along the once busy path and we talked with a few. We discussed with them the question that is in many’s thoughts, I am sure; “What will happen to the park now?” We posed to them a solution we had discussed last July in our family, and they agreed that would be a good idea and they would visit again. The remaining structure of the bridge should be left as is, as well as the wreckage on the valley’s floor. A railing, as lines the rest of the bridge, should be put at each remaining end so visitors could walk out upon the two sections. A fence or some such barrier should be put surrounding the collapsed pieces below and paths be made to go around it so visitors could see it for themselves. A new bridge should not be constructed in its place because the park would lose all sense of its history. This would retain the interest, and maybe generate more, as people from near and far would come to see the historical sight. Maps can remember the names and places, books can note the dates and times, and photographs can retain the images, but all the pictures in the world cannot make up for a journey first hand seen and the memory of what has been.
It is something people can visit together and gain a hint of the past. The poets can write verses of its lives lived and pen out words such as, “Mortality shows truest when paled against nature’s ever-changing wrath,” or some such phrase. The artists can fill their brushes and tell the tale of each ancient tree’s fatal blow. The engineers can discuss the building of the bridge and the withertos and the whyfores of its collapse. And the scientists can study how some plants survived and others didn’t and how unpredictable weather may be. And the families can come bearing four or five generations, as there is something for people of all ages to learn. The little ones of only 2 or 3 can point to the tall, tall thing and say, “Wow!” And the young can look on and say, “I was here before, when the bridge was whole. I walked upon its paths, I rode upon it tracks.” And the next generation can look to the younger and smile at the memories, and think back to when the park first opened. Then they will look to their elders, and smile, as they hear the old tell the young stories of way back when. And someday those yet unborn can stand at the end and listen to today’s young remember way back when. And all can remember the lives and the dreams of those who came before and remember what once was, and what was lost, and all that remains and ponder over what if...
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The feature article ran with a photograph and will be posted soon
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