Historic Bridges

The Planning Commission's June meeting looked at designating several bridges as Historic Landmarks. Seminole Heights has one. The following is a presentation made by Rose Petrucha at the meeting. I edited it somewhat.

This next agenda item is also a landmark designation, and this one is for the historic bridges on the Hillsborough River.

The city of Tampa has initiated the designation process for six bridges which span the Hillsborough River.

The six bridges are located in the downtown area, Hyde Park, West Tampa, Tampa Heights, Seminole Heights area.

The importance of these bridges are that they were built during a time that allowed further development of the city through its time period, and these particular bridges that we're going to be looking at were built between 1913 and 1939.

Of course, the first bridge that really started Tampa to span from the east side of the river to the west side of the river was the bridge that was built by Plant to bring the Tampa Bay Hotel and the railroad into Tampa.

By 1903, there were two connections across from the east side to the west side, the bridge at Lafayette, which connected over to the Tampa Bay Hotel, and the Fortune Street Bridge, which was built by Hugh Macfarlane to connect over to the West Tampa area. By 1903, of course, the area was developing from Ybor City, Tampa Heights, West Tampa, and Hyde Park with the downtown central business district of Tampa. And of course, with all the development that was occurring

By 1913, the bridge across at Lafayette that connected over to the Tampa Bay Hotel had already been taken down, a second bridge built, and by 1913, a third bridge was being built as a replacement because of the growth of those areas and the need for a stronger and wider bridge.

By 1914 the new Lafayette Bridge was complete, and it represented Bose Art movement. The Lafayette street/Kennedy Boulevard bridge is a bascule bridge, which is a type of bridge that pivots on a hinge and has a vertical span when it opens.

The second bridge, in fact the next two bridges, the 1920s brought in a lot of growth, and there was a need to expand the public works system, and there was a -- a great response in the building program of the next three bridges.

The Cass Street Bridge was built in about 1926, and it also is a bascule bridge. About the same time period, the Platt Street Bridge was built, also completed in 1926, also representative of the Bascule Bridge, and you can see the similarities between them all.

The Fortune Street Bridge that Hugh Macfarlane had built needed replacement by the 1920s, and so a new iron bridge, another bascule bridge with a hinge, was built to replace the previous bridge, and this became the Fortune Street Bridge, the Laurel Street Bridge.

By 1927 there was a need for the bridge connecting into West Tampa, and from this point it was from Tampa Heights into the west Tampa area, and this brought a new type of technology, and the Michigan Avenue Bridge was built as a swing bridge. And this one, the bridge -- instead of vertically opening, it pivots on a horizontal plane and swings open, thereby allowing the channel to be open to the bridges.

This bridge, I believe it's one of only seven left in -- in the state of Florida, so it has a very important role in this particular area.

And the sixth bridge that was built in about 1939 was also a new type of technology, and it was the lift bridge, and in this case, the bridge goes totally -- is raised up to allow the boat traffic to proceed along the -- the water, So it rises -- arises and lowers. That is the T.N. Henderson Bridge on Hillsborough Avenue.

So who is T.N. Henderson? According to the Times he was a prominent resident who was one of the owners of the Floridan Hotel. That's all I could find so far.


More posts on our bridges

Hillsbrough Avenue Bridge
http://seminoleheights.blogspot.com/2005/06/exploring-seminole-heights.html
http://seminoleheights.blogspot.com/2005/06/exploring-seminole-heights-underside_29.html
http://seminoleheights.blogspot.com/2005/06/exploring-seminole-heights-welcome.html
http://seminoleheights.blogspot.com/2005/06/exploring-seminole-heights-tidal-pools.html

I-275 Bridge
http://seminoleheights.blogspot.com/2005/07/troll-of-seminole-heights.html

ML King Bridge (referred to as a lump of concrete by Jim Beeler inthe above meeting)
http://seminoleheights.blogspot.com/2005/05/unknown-monuments.html
http://seminoleheights.blogspot.com/2005/05/i-discovered-that-paul-h.html
http://seminoleheights.blogspot.com/2005/05/view-from-riverside-academy-facing.html
http://seminoleheights.blogspot.com/2005/05/what-is-this-i-do-not-yet-know.html