Second Street Overpass
All along the Ellwood Short-line large crowds gathered to see the funeral train of President William McKinley as it passed through Ellwood City on its way from Washington DC to Ohio.
The event was well documented with several pictures taken from the viaduct where Second Street crosses the railroad tracks. However this picture was taken of the crowd gathered at the overpass from the grounds of the United Steel Tube Mill. This unique picture shows the wooden bridge as it looked in 1901. There are a number of other things beside the bridge that stands out from this picture including the large locomotive engine on the right and all the tube mill workers sitting upon the eight foot wooden fence on the left. Something else we noticed were the houses in the far right.
The viaduct over the tracks as it is today was completed towards the end of 1931. At that time, there was an effort to name it “Columbus Bridge” but the motion failed to generate much interest.
I remember standing on the piers underneath when a train would come by and blow its horn, me and Dennis Barto, liked to blown us off the pier. Don