Capilano Suspension Bridge The Capilano Suspension Bridge was built in 1889 across the Capilano River by a Scottish engineer named George Grant Mackay in the city of Vancouver. The bridge was initially constructed from hemp ropes and cedar planks, which were later replaced with more durable steel cables in 1903. Over time, the bridge has exchanged ownership several times and has undergone a series of renovations. This is a paper on the Capilano Bridge. Special focus is given to its history, construction, and impact in its locality.
History of the Capilano Suspended Bridge
George Grant Mackay arrived in Vancouver in 1887 and bought 6000 acres from Britain in the Capilano area at the rate of $1 per acre. His intentions for the land, as stated
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In 1962, Hurricane Frieda blew across the property wreaking havoc, but the bridge stood unharmed. Recently in the winter of 2006, a 93,000pound, 9.4 meters, 300 year old Douglas fir tree fell on the western part of the bridge. The cables did not snap under the loading, but the bridge was closed for three months for renovations. During this time, the tree was removed from the bridge and testing was done. Also the supporting concrete on either side of the bridge was upgraded to 114tons (Capilano Suspension Bridge Park par. …show more content…
Source: Capilano Suspension Bridge Park
Civilization and culture associated with the Capilano Suspended Bridge
The name Capilano was first used by the Squamish Nation in reference to the First Nation, which meaning “beautiful river” and was spelled as Kia’palano. Later on, the name morphed to Capilano, a name synonymous with the bridge and park.
When he bought the property in 1988, George Grant did not have any idea that it would become the landmark structure that it is today. In fact, he did not regard the bridge as an income-generating venture or as a tourist destination. During the time of construction in the late 1800s, settlement in North Vancouver was not so much pronounced and the people living in that region practiced logging and lumber harvesting as the main economic activities. The initial settlers cleared the forest to build homes and build businesses. The forests were a source of wealth and prosperity and the people believed that the bigger the portion of the forest that one owned, the more wealthy they were. This could have been the driving force that made George acquire 6,000 acres for himself and build the
Without a concrete reason for the bridge's failure, every suggested reason was researched until proven incorrect” (Silver). There were many reasons that were suggested, but could not be proven correct due to the collapse. Wikipedia states that “A small crack was formed through fretting wear at the bearing, and grew through internal corrosion, a problem known as stress corrosion cracking.” The failure of the bridge was caused by a defect in one of the eye-bars on the north side causing the other side to collapse as well. “Stress corrosion cracking is the formation of brittle cracks in a normally sound material through the simultaneous action of a tensile stress and a corrosive environment.
A privately owned company constructed the current Peace Bridge in 1927. It became a link between Fort Erie, Canada and Buffalo, New York. The bridge is over one mile long, 5,800 feet, and holds three lanes of traffic. The center lane may go north or south depending on the volume of traffic. In 1934, the Great Depression caused a change. The Peace Bridge became publicly owned. As a result there were no taxes to be paid, and financing for projects could be obtained by issuing bonds at a low interest rate. The publicly owned bridge instituted a board of governors called the Peace Bridge Authority, PBA. The board, which made all decisions, was made up of six Americans and three Canadians. Fr...
OWLCREEK BRIDGE" ." ABP Journal. 1.1 (2005): n. page. Web. 23 Mar. 2014. Bierce, Ambrose “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge”. The Norton Introduction to
An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge is split into three sections. In the first section, Bierce describes in detail the situation, a youn...
The Jericho Covered Bridge in Kingsville, Maryland was built in 1865 and restored in 1982. The bridge is 100 feet long and cased in cedar planks and timber beams. Legend has it that after the Civil War many lynchings occurred on the bridge. Passersby were supposedly captured on the bridge and hung from the upper rafters. The bridge is very close to my house and I have driven over it several times. The storyteller, age 19, also lives a couple minutes away from the bridge. He has lived in Kingsville, Maryland his entire life. He recalled a dramatic story he had heard from his older brother involving the haunted bridge.
The Earl of Selkirk, Thomas Douglas, bought the Hudson Bay Company in 1811 and was. able to get a grant of land for 300 000km2. The Earl called this settlement Aissinidoia. Earl hoped his settlement would attract some former Hudson Bay Company employees. He hoped the settlement would produce enough food for his company.
The Victoria Bridge, constructed in the mid-19th-Century in British North America, is a famous Canadian landmark that set the stage for the beginning of the industrialization phase of Canada and more specifically, Montreal. It would eventually “play a vital role in the growth of the city and the country”.
In the late 1800s Seattle, then the heart of the industrialized Olympic Peninsula saw many changes. Industrialization is not a cheap endeavor for cities so Seattle contracted workers from China. White and Native Americans saw the Chinese as labor competition and prejudices quickly developed. Victor Smith, head and founder of the Puget Sound Cooperate Colony and emerging entrepreneur opposed the new labor force so greatly that he decided to move to an area where he could attain and retain more power. In 1862 Smith was given permission by President Abraham Lincoln to set aside 3,520 acres of raw land in the upper most corner of Washington State. The same year Port Angeles was established as a city, Thomas Aldwell another entrepreneur arrived by steamboat into the recently established community - Aldwell traveled with a vision to harness uncharted lands.
The first and most challenging problem associated with building the Mackinac Bridge arrived long before the bridge was even designed. Financing such an enormous project was no easy feat. In 1928, the idea of connecting the upper and lower peninsulas was proposed to Congress for the first time (Brown 4). At the time, the suspected bridge project was very much under government scrutiny and control. In fact, the initial boost in interest in pursuing the construction of a bridge came about due to the depression. The Public Works Administration (PWA) had been created under President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal economic plan which would fund certain construction projects with th...
The government took several steps to prepare for immigrants in the west, for the size of a population that they wanted, a certain infrastructure was needed. In 1870 they begin buying rights to the land from the Hudson Bay Company, at the same time Britain handed the rights to much of the land to the colony. Between 1871 and 1877 the government negotiated several treaties (called the Numbered Treaties, 1-7) with the aboriginal and Métis peoples who populated the area. They created an infrastructure of laws and created the RCMP to police the area. In 1872 with the Dominion Lands Act, colonists could buy 160 acres for 10$, of which they retained full possession if they occupied the land for 3 years. They also kept some of the territories to sell at full price or use for other projects; for example, when Canadian Pacific built the railroad in 1885, the government gave them 10.4 million hectares, on top of paying them 63 500 000$ for their work and lending the company 35 000 000$.
"An Occurence at Owl Creek Bridge." Classic Reader. 2009. BlackDog Media, Web. 2 Dec 2009. .
During the nineteenth century, China experienced a lot of political and social disruption. Many Chinese decided to immigrate to the east coast of the United States due to the attraction of the gold rush. Once they came, the Chinese were rejected by the Americans, but some was still able to prosper for gold along the Fraser River in Western Canada. During that period, Canada desperately needed a transportation system that would connect the east and west coast and strengthen their national identity. This was a hard task because British Columbia’s topography is mountainous, which makes the construction both dangerous and difficult.
The Bunker Hill Bridge in Catawba County in North Carolina was built in 1895 and reconstructed in 1994. The bridge is significant because it is the only remaining historic type of "Improved Lattice Truss" bridge. This historic construction was patented in 1839 by Herman Haupt and in 1894, commissioners of Catawba County asked the residents to construct a bridge over Lyles creek. The Haupt truss design is of civil engineering interest because it is an example of innovation in mid 19th century bridge engineering and a construction associated with Herman Haupt, who was a prominent civil engineer in the 19 century and well known for his pioneering projects in the analysis of bridges (Bennet, 4). This paper will summarize the event by reporting
The bridge’s construction was started on Jan. 5, 1933, after, “Experts at the time determined that a bridge was needed in San Francisco, since it was the largest American city still using mostly ferry boats.” (Shiff, 2017.) Prior to the bridge’s construction, ferries were used to move cars across the Golden Gate Strait. The bridge was seen an engineering feat that would have been impossible, until improved construction technology made building the bridge a challenging but possible task. A bridge across the Golden Gate Strait would need to withstand high winds, tides from the bay, heavy fog, and possible seismic activity from the San Andreas fault less than 8 miles away. The bridge was designed by engineer Joseph B. Strauss and was completed on April 19, 1937. The bridge used more than one million tons of concrete to create the two main towers, and the bridge is also supported by approximately 80,000 miles of suspension cables. The Golden Gate Bridge was one of the first bridges of this magnitude and size to be built. The grand bridge connected these two sides of California, and lead to major changes for economics, transposition, and the
In her essay,”Importance of the Golden Gate Bridge,” Stephanie Stiavetti suggest that “It maintained this point of pride for nearly 25 years until the Verrazano- Narrows Bridge was built in New York in 1964. Today, this historic San Francisco landmark holds its place as the second largest suspension bridge in the country, behind Verrazano Narrows.” Back then, experts thought that it would be impossible to build a bridge across the tides and currents in that area because strong currents and tides would make construction extremely difficult and dangerous. The water is over 500 feet deep in the center of the channel, and along with the area's strong winds and thick fog, the idea of building a bridge there seemed nearly impossible. Despite all of the problems of building a bridge across the Golden Gate, Joseph Strauss was named as lead engineer for the project. Construction began January 5, 1933, and in the end cost more than $35 million to