Million Dollar Bridge
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The Million Dollar Bridge, more formally known as the Miles Glacier Bridge, was built in the early 1900s fifty miles from Cordova, Alaska. It is a cantilever bridge which completed a 904 km (196 mile) railroad line for the Copper River and Northwestern Railway, built by J. P. Morgan and the Guggenheim family to haul copper from the old mining town of Kennicott, now located within the Wrangell - St Elias National Park and Preserve, to the port of Cordova, Alaska. It earned its nickname because of its $1.4 million cost, well recuperated because of the about $200 million worth of copper ore which was shipped as a result of its construction.
Timeline
- 1907-1911 The railroad and bridges were built.
- 1938 Its use as a railroad bridge ends.
- 1964 One span of the nearly-1600' bridge slipped off its foundation after the Good Friday Earthquake.
- 2000 The bridge is placed [1] (http://www.cr.nps.gov/nr/listings/20000407.htm) on the National Register of Historic Places.
- 2004 Repairs estimated to cost $14 million in federal and $3 million in state tax dollars begin. "I don't get it," said former Cordova Mayor Kelly Weaverling. "I hear we're going to have cut old folks homes and start taxing people in this state, and we're blowing millions of dollars on a bridge that's going to go nowhere. I think it's an incredible waste of money." [2] (http://www.adn.com/front/story/4580689p-4551652c.html)
External links
- 1911 newspaper article about the Kenicott-Cordova line (http://www.mccarthy-kennicott.com/MA2003/id4.htm)
- 1985 article from the Alaska Science Forum (http://www.gi.alaska.edu/ScienceForum/ASF7/714.html)
- 2002 article from the Alaska Science Forum (http://www.gi.alaska.edu/ScienceForum/ASF15/1595.html)
- A panoramic image of the bridge, probably taken in the 1920s (http://www.archives.gov/exhibit_hall/panoramic_photography/images/miles_glacier_bridge.html)