Crossing Twelve Mile Creek - The Burgoyne Bridge

Crossing Twelve Mile Creek - The Burgoyne Bridge. . The land surrounding the Burgoyne Bridge was carved out by erosion at the end of the last Ice Age. Much of downtown St. Catharines is built on the Homer Bar, a ridge that marks the ancient shoreline of Lake Iroquois, which existed over 13,000 years ago. For thousands of years a network of trails connected Lake Ontario to the upper Great Lakes. Used by generations of Indigenous people as a corridor for settlement and trade, one of these trails utilized the top of the Homer Bar and Twelve Mile Creek. With the arrival of European settlers, these trails became major transportation routes as the community grew around the natural landscape. , By the early nineteenth century, a wooden bridge was built to cross the Twelve Mile Creek. This bridge was replaced by a steel swing-bridge in the 1820s to allow for the passage of ships. The St. Paul Street Swing Bridge remained a prominent feature in the canal valley until it was demolished in the 1940s. , From Idea to Reality , With increased traffic to and from the western part of the city, improving the crossing of Twelve Mile Creek became a top priority. As early as November 1867, the main route from the railway station through the canal valley and up into the downtown core was seen as a major nuisance. Described as "a bone-shaking ride down one long hill and up another tortuous one," it was made particularly treacherous after wet or snowy weather. , The idea for a new bridge became a subject of great debate at city council during the spring of 1910. While nearly everyone was in agreement that such a bridge was necessary, the main concerns were the cost of construction, the siting of the structure, and whether a "toll" should be charged. Debate and planning for the new structure would take nearly five years. , Designed by Sprague and Reppert, civil engineers from Pittsburgh, construction of the Burgoyne Bridge as a multi-span, steel deck truss structure began in 1915. Originally known as the St. Paul Street High Level Bridge and the St. Paul Street Viaduct, the bridge carried St. Paul Street West (part of Regional Road 81) over Twelve Mile Creek. The bridge was opened to pedestrian traffic in late November 1915, and the first vehicular traffic was permitted to cross the bridge on December 18. , In June 1916, the bridge was officially named the "Burgoyne Bridge" in honour of William Burgoyne, mayor of St. Catharines and owner of the St. Catharines Standard. In 1917, streetcar tracks were laid across the bridge to connect to the railway station. With the exception of the installation of new light standards to replace the original 1915 fixtures, the outward appearance of the bridge remained virtually unchanged during its lifespan. , The New Bridge , Commemorating the history of bridges within the immediate area, the 2017 replacement bridge provides a new landmark for the City of St. Catharines. The focal point of the new bridge is an open-truss arch span, recalling the truss work of the Burgoyne Bridge, the arch forms of the nearby Glenridge Bridge and the stays of the original St. Paul Street Swing Bridge. The single central steel arch supports a steel grillage interconnected with two lines of relatively shallow constant-depth steel box girders, an arch spanning 125 m (410 ft), with the box girders being continuous from end-to-end of the bridge over 333 m (1,092 ft). The height of the bridge piers varies across the valley, the maximum being 23 m (75 feet). Just over 2,400 tonnes (2,646 tons) of structural steel comprise the new structure.