Cities located on rivers across the country likely breathed a sigh of relief last week that the tragedy on Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge didn’t happen in their town.
Chattanooga, with five automobile bridges, one railroad bridge and one walking bridge spanning the Tennessee River, must have been among them.
But we have had a partial collapse on one of those bridges — though without the tragic circumstances that occurred when a container ship with a sudden loss of power hit the bridge in Maryland.
The incident occurred 108 years ago this month on the railroad bridge — known by some as Tenbridge — which crosses the river just west of Chickamauga Dam, which didn’t exist at the time.
Rather than anything hitting the support columns of the bridge from below, the load of steel underframings on the Queen & Crescent freight train crossing the bridge at 10 p.m. shifted, crashing into the second southbound span and causing it and 10 loaded freight cars to tumble nearly 60 feet into the river.