English Center Bridge, English Center, Pennsylvania

Built 1891 by the Dean & Westbrook Company of New York, the English Center Bridge is 300 feet long and spans Little Pine Creek in Lycoming County, Pennsylvania. Nathan Holth of HistoricBridges.org probably said it best in the following statement trying to describe this bridge:

“The bridge so bizarre and unique that it defies classification. It has been called a truss bridge, a suspension bridge, and even a “two-hinged inverted trussed arch” type bridge. The confusion arises from the fact that this bridge has the characteristics of an eyebar chain suspension bridge, but it also has diagonal members, which are not part of a normal suspension bridge. According to the Historic American Engineering Record, a structural analysis was composed and the bridge was found to function more as a truss than a suspension. Further, they suggested that based on their analysis, the bridge could be called a two-hinged inverted trussed arch.”

GPS Location: 41°26’05.3″N 77°17’19.7″W