Hyde Park has ancestry with Brooklyn Bridge
Residents have long felt nostalgic about the Hyde Park Footbridge, one of the few surviving relics of pedestrian transportation left in the region.
As the bridge has settled comfortably into the familiar landscape of everyday life, local travelers didn't think twice about the structure's suspension design over the Kiski River, nor the telltale steel cables lacing the three sections of the 460-foot span.
But who would have thought that the five-foot wide pedestrian bridge erected in 1921 for workers commuting to manufacturing jobs in Leechburg and Hyde Park was designed by the John A. Roebling's Sons Company?
The famed engineering firm whose patriarch designed and built the Brooklyn Bridge (and the town of Saxonburg) and whose family went on to create the Golden Gate Bridge, among others, also was responsible for a handful of walking bridges across the country, according to an official from the Roebling Museum in Roebling, N.J.
The origins of the Hyde Park Footbridge were uncovered by lifelong borough resident Sam Zanotti, 67, co-chairman of the Hyde Park Museum, while digging for documents for the borough to prove a clear title for a right-of-way to the bridge.
The information was crucial to secure money from the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation and other sources to repair the aging structure.
Zanotti's research turned up borough correspondence requesting a copy of the original plans for the footbridge from the Roebling's Sons Company in 1948. The now defunct, Trenton-based engineering firm responded, confirming the plan drawings from 1920 and, subsequently, sent them to the borough for a footbridge renovation project.
"I personally was excited about finding out that the Roebling Company designed this bridge after all these years," said Zanotti, whose uncle, the late John J. Zanotti Sr. contacted the Roebling Company as borough secretary then.
"But truthfully, I don't know how many people would have known who John Roebling was back in those days when communications were practically nil," he said.
"My puzzlement is how the borough got connected to the Roebling Company because they were in New Jersey."
Last week, Zanotti found more documents, discovering a "Roebling Department" in the Frick-Reid Supply Corporation of Pittsburgh. The borough purchased construction materials from the company in 1936 to rebuild the span after the flood.
The footbridge is among at least 30 Roebling suspension bridges in North America and counting, according to George Lengel, vice chairman of the board of directors for the Roebling Museum in Roebling, N.J.
The "new" Roebling spans such as the one in Hyde Park have been recently discovered because "they are bridges of convenience without pomp and circumstance," said Lengel.
The Hyde Park span is the second walking bridge that Lengel has learned about in the last year. "There's about a half dozen such bridges known and there could be more out there," he said. "These pedestrian bridges don't come to anyone's attention until there's some project and they realize that they have a 'John Roebling.'"
Birth of a bridge
Crossing the Kiski River has long been a way of life for the residents of Hyde Park and Leechburg.
An industrial powerhouse at the turn of the century, Hyde Park bustled with several industries including glass, steel, brick, a railroad car roofing factory, the Hyde Park Foundry and a brewery.
The small borough also had the dubious distinction of being one of the few "wet" towns in the area where alcohol was served. Leechburg, too, was humming with companies and stores.
The Pennsylvania Railroad began construction on a railroad bridge spanning the two towns in 1886. According to local historians, after the bridge was built, as many as 14 trains crossed the river daily.
After the bridge was destroyed twice by flood and once by an ice jam, the railroad stopped rebuilding it, leaving the huge sandstone piers standing in the river.
Travel between Leechburg and Hyde Park continued by ferry.
But tragically, the vessel capsized on a Saturday night, June 28, 1913, killing eight passengers.
Some years later, Hyde Park reached an agreement with the railroad to lease, then eventually buy the land for a walking bridge. The borough tapped the John A. Roebling's Sons Company to design the span in 1920 and the bridge was completed the following year.
Even as the automobile became more prevalent by mid-century, people still commuted via the foot bridge.
"Kids use to bounce up and down on the wooden planks," said local historian Bob Fiscus, 83, of Leechburg. "Entertainment was getting on the bridge and getting it to sway, moving the planks up and down. Those were the days before television."
Although commuter-foot traffic has dropped off, the structure still is popular among walkers and kids on bikes.
"It's worth refurbishing again," Fiscus said.
Zanotti's research along with prodding from Hyde Park Borough, the Armstrong County Commissioners and local business people netted $282,000 for a recent renovation project on the bridge. New lighting and minor repairs are under way and should be completed by fall, according to Jennifer Bellas, community development division director for Armstrong County.
But Fiscus and others would like to see a more extensive renovation including sandblasting and repainting the structure. The county received a bid of $630,000 in late 2007 for painting and containment, according to Bellas, and will they will apply for more grants for future work.
Timeline
One of the few remaining pedestrian bridges in the state, the Hyde Park Footbridge has had many incarnations over the last century.
1886: Construction by the Pennsylvania Railroad begins on a railroad bridge spanning the Kiski River from Leechburg to Hyde Park.
1889: Flood sweeps away new railroad bridge.
1901: Bridge rebuilt.
1904: Bridge destroyed by ice jam in 1904.
1920: John A. Roebling's Sons Company Designs a Pedestrian Walking Bridge on piers of former railroad bridge.
1921: Suspension Footbridge constructed of wood completed.
1936: Bridge destroyed by flood and later rebuilt.
1949: As the footbridge straddles Armstrong and Westmoreland counties, Hyde Park Borough requests that both counties take responsibility for span.
1955: Both counties replace wooden bridge.
Source: Hyde Park Museum
