page_title: Gray's Ferry Bridge
section_title: Newkirk Viaduct (1838-1902)
hierarchical_section_title: Gray's Ferry Bridge / Permanent bridges / Newkirk Viaduct (1838-1902)
caption_attribution_description: English: Photo looking southwest at the Newkirk Viaduct (also known as the Grays Ferry Bridge) across the Schuylkill River in southern Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Built in 1838 and rebuilt and improved several times before being demolished around 1902, the bridge had an unusual draw span that retracted into another span.
context_page_description: Gray's Ferry Bridge has been the formal or informal name of several floating bridges and four permanent ones that have carried highway and rail traffic over the Schuylkill River in Philadelphia. The bridge today is a four-lane divided highway bridge, built in 1976, that carries Grays Ferry Avenue from the Grays Ferry neighborhood on the east bank, over the river and the Northeast Corridor railroad tracks, to the Southwest Philadelphia neighborhood of Kingsessing.
  In 1902, rail traffic was taken over by the adjacent Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad Bridge No. 1, which in 2019 and 2020 is being rebuilt for use by cyclists and pedestrians traveling the Schuylkill River Trail.
context_section_description: In 1831, the Pennsylvania legislature chartered a new company to build a rail line from Philadelphia to the Delaware state line. A survey of routes was begun in July 1835, and the following year, company officials settled a debate over just how and where to cross the Schuylkill: a permanent bridge at Gray's Ferry. The firm, by now renamed The Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad Company, bought the necessary land on December 31, 1836.
  Over the next two years, the railroad built an 800-foot covered truss bridge supported by five piers; its fifth span, as counted from the east, could be pulled into its sixth span to allow boats to pass. A single track ran along the bridge's southern side, separated by a fence from a roadway that ran along its northern side. The cost, including construction and land acquisition, came to nearly $200,000. The railroad named the bridge for its president, Matthew Newkirk (1794–1868), a Philadelphia business and civic leader, and erected an obelisk, the Newkirk Viaduct Monument, along its western approach.
  Construction on the rest of the 17 miles of track proceeded, and when the bridge opened in 1838, it was the final link in the first direct rail service between Philadelphia and Wilmington. It did not initially allow locomotives to pass, nor were locomotives particularly welcomed on city streets, so the cars were pulled by horses over the river and northward along three miles of track to the terminus of the PW&B. That was the Southern and Western Railroad Station, a grand six-track station and PW&B office building erected in 1840 at Broad Street and Washington Avenue (the former Prime Avenue).
  The new bridge was less than a year old when it was severely damaged. On January 26, 1839, historian Daniel Bowen wrote that a "great ice freshet ... swept away one of the piers and two of its sections. The floating bridge at Gray's Ferry was also carried away by the violence of the same flood. We are happy to learn that all the damages occurring from that rapid rise of the Schuylkill are in rapid progress of repair and that both the bridges are now passable." (It is not clear when the floating bridge finally ceased to exist.) The damage was repaired within weeks for less than $15,000.
  A toll was charged for road traffic until 1847, when Philadelphia County paid the PW&B $50,000 to eliminate the tolls. The deal also bound the railroad to rebuild the bridge if necessary.
  In June 1846, the Viaduct was chosen as the route for the telegraph line that completing the first telecommunications link from New York to Washington; operators complained of interruptions whenever the draw was opened. In 1852, the bridge was strengthened to handle more weight, and steam power at last replaced horses.
  On November 11, 1854, a passing steamboat damaged the bridge. A temporary platform was quickly erected to carry traffic, and a large work crew set about making repairs.
  During the Civil War, the PW&B's Philadelphia terminal became the great embarkation and debarkation point for Philadelphia men going to and returning from war in the southern states. On December 23, 1863, a fire — perhaps started by a locomotive's sparks — damaged an eastern span of the bridge, and firefighters intentionally destroyed the draw section to protect the western part. The bridge was rebuilt as a Town lattice truss that was left uncovered. In 1865, the bridge was cited in the U.S. Supreme Court case Gilman v. Philadelphia, which upheld the power of Congress to regulate interstate commerce, including navigable streams in a particular state.
  By 1889, the Newkirk Viaduct was a four-span, 503-foot bridge, including a 92-foot Howe truss span with a 144-foot cover.
  The several acres around the Viaduct's western end had become a hub of railroad activity. The area had had an enginehouse since the Viaduct opened; by 1876, a bigger, eight-stall roundhouse had been erected. By 1877, passenger trains stopped at the Gray's Ferry station, on 49th Street between Grays and Paschall Streets. Here, northbound express trains from Washington, Baltimore, or 
caption: 1899 photo looks southwest at the western end of the Newkirk Viaduct with the draw span retracted.
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