The Post Road Bridge
1807 Westport was a prosperous shipping community with wharves, docks, and shipyards along both sides of the Saugatuck River. The first Post Road Bridge was owned and built by the Connecticut Turnpike Company, a public service corporation chartered in 1806 by the General Assembly to build a highway from Fairfield to Greenwich with four toll Gates. The Westport portion was called State Street. The bridge toll charge ranged from 25 cents for two-horse stages and pleasure carriages, to 2 cents for each animal crossing the wood-plank bridge.
1857 The newly constructed railroad forced the Connecticut Turnpike Company out of business. Ownership of the bridge was turned over to the Town of Westport (incorporated 1835). The Town constructed a hoisting draw to allow for tall river traffic. Its design flaws and frequent repairs were the subject of great town controversy.
1917 The Strauss Bascule Bridge Co. of Chicago redesigned the earlier bridge, and town controversy subsided. This engineer's 1915 drawings show the location of the bearings in the bridge, and the way the drawbridge opened to allow boats to pass. The bridge cost $185,586.
1930s Westport was no longer a shipping center, and the Post Road was part of the State road system. In 1954, when Parker-Harding Plaza and the Library addition were built, the drawbridge was eliminated, ornamental railings and light fixtures were added, and the trolley tracks were removed.
1990-1992 The Connecticut Department of Transportation widened the bridge, lengthened the spans, and made extensive improvements. Buried bearing housings from the 1817 drawbridge were removed. This sculpture, "A Bridge in Time, " by Bobbie Kletzsch Friedman, incorporates 3 of them.
This project is sponsored by
The Sunrise Rotary Club of Westport Foundation, Inc.
The Downtown Merchants Association, and Drew Friedman
October 3, 1999
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