Niagara Falls 



1899 of the cliffs were over 800 feet apart, and this right above where 

 p the terrible whirlpool rapids begin. 



The success met with by the promoters and builders of the 

 railway suspension bridge created a demand for a bridge two 

 miles farther up stream, close to the Falls, where the scenic feature 

 was more pronounced. After much opposition a charter was 

 obtained, and in the winter of 1 867—68 a rope was carried across 

 the river at the site of the proposed new bridge on an ice bridge, 

 and thus connection was made between the cliffs at this point for 

 another structure which was to develop many interesting incidents 

 in bridge destruction and bridge construction. The bridge first 

 built on this site was a wooden structure, opened tc the public on 

 January 2nd, 1 869. It was only about 1 ft. wide, and carriages 

 were unable to pass one another on it. This led to long waits at 

 either end, and no doubt many readers of this articl j will remem- 

 ber the long lines of carriages moving in one direction across the 

 bridge in caravan form, while many others were waiting for the 

 line to pass in order that they might secure the right of way. Those 

 were the days when the Niagara hackman was in his prime, and 

 the locality had not been revolutionized by the electric trolley. 

 In 1 872 steel supplanted wood in the bottom chord, and in 1 884 

 the wooden towers, in which elevators were operated on the 

 Canadian side, gave way to towers of steel. In October, 1 887, 

 the work of widening the bridge was commenced, and it was com- 

 pleted June 1 3th, 1 888, without any suspension of traffic. This 

 gave an entire new steel structure from bank to bank, with a span 

 of 1,268 ft. As a suspension bridge, it was the admiration of 

 all who visited Niagara, but it was doomed to an untimely fate. 



On the night of January 9- 10th, 1889, the Niagara locality 

 was visited by a terrific hurricane, and when daylight came in the 

 morning not a single inch of the bridge proper remained, it having 

 been torn away from the cliffs as though cut out by a knife, and 

 the entire mass of steel lay bottom up in the gorge below. On the 

 slopes of the bank on each side of the river the ends of the fallen 

 mass were visible, while beneath the deep, silent waters of the 



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