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Red Cliff Bridge

Eagle County, US

Red Cliff Bridge

Red Cliff Bridge also called the Green Bridge or originally called the "Silver Bridge" by locals for its original silver color before being re-painted green as it remains today, is a cantilevered steel arch bridge located about 0.5 mi (0.80 km) southwest of the town of Red Cliff, Colorado, one of Co

lorado's iconic bridges. The bridge carries U.S. Highway 24 over the Eagle River, as well as a county road, and the former Union Pacific Railroad track that heads south toward Tennessee Pass and the city of Leadville. One of only two steel arch bridges within Colorado, Red Cliff Bridge has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places since 1985 and is the state's only cantilevered steel arch bridge. The bridge was designed by King Burghardt, an engineer at the Colorado Department of Highways, and built by contractor P.M. Kenney in 1940, using steel components fabricated by the Minnesota-Moline Power Implement Company. Construction was difficult, with workers hanging over a 200 ft (61 m) drop while working in temperatures that sometimes dipped below 0 °F (−18 °C). Burghardt wrote in his journal, "In the morning, each gang was lifted to its scaffold on a platform hung from the high...

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