Fonds F954 - St. Lawrence Bridge Company fonds

Zone du titre et de la mention de responsabilité

Titre propre

St. Lawrence Bridge Company fonds

Dénomination générale des documents

Titre parallèle

Compléments du titre

Mentions de responsabilité du titre

Notes du titre

Niveau de description

Fonds

Zone de l'édition

Mention d'édition

Mentions de responsabilité relatives à l'édition

Zone des précisions relatives à la catégorie de documents

Mention d'échelle (cartographique)

Mention de projection (cartographique)

Mention des coordonnées (cartographiques)

Mention d'échelle (architecturale)

Juridiction responsable et dénomination (philatélique)

Zone des dates de production

Date(s)

  • 1907-1911 (Production)
    Producteur
    St. Lawrence Bridge Company

Zone de description matérielle

Description matérielle

0.10 m of textual records

Zone de la collection

Titre propre de la collection

Titres parallèles de la collection

Compléments du titre de la collection

Mention de responsabilité relative à la collection

Numérotation à l'intérieur de la collection

Note sur la collection

Zone de la description archivistique

Nom du producteur

(n.d.)

Histoire administrative

The waters of the St. Lawrence River have long served Canada as a great artery of commerce, but after the coming of the railroad, the river also became a barrier to east-west transportation at the river's two principal Quebec ports. Montreal solved the problem in 1859 with the Victoria Bridge, leaving its downriver commercial rival, the city of Quebec, at a severe disadvantage. Quebec eagerly sought a bridge of its own. There were several proposals for great suspension or cantilever bridges, but nothing came of them until formation of the Quebec Bridge Company in 1887. By 1890 the company had contracted with the Phoenix Bridge Company of Pennyslvania to build a cantilever bridge with a main span of 1800 feet that would have eclipsed Scotland's Firth of Forth bridge as the longest cantilever span in the world. By Summer 1907 the structure was well advanced, with the cantilever arms projected out from both shores of the river, when a disastrous failure of the south arm plunged 76 workmen to their deaths. A Royal Commission attributed the failure to defective design and errors in judgment by the engineers. A year later the Canadian government appointed a board of engineers to try again, chief among them the noted American bridge designer Ralph Modjeski. Work began on the new bridge in 1909 and was nearing completion seven years later when disaster struck again. The 5000-ton center span was being lifted into place when a bearing failed, allowing the span to fall into the river. This time, 13 workers were killed. A year later a new span was successfully lifted into place, and in October 1917 the first train crossed the great bridge. The bridge has stood firmly astride the St. Lawrence ever since, helping to link the Maritime Provinces and eastern Quebec with the rest of Canada. The record its builders set in 1917 still stands, for the Quebec Bridge remains the longest railroad cantilever span ever built (overall length 987 metres, width 29 metres, height 103 metres). The Quebec Bridge was declared a historic monument in 1987, by the Canadian & American Society of Civil Engineers and a National Historic Site on January 24, 1996 by the Department of Canadian Heritage.

Historique de la conservation

Portée et contenu

The fonds consists of correspondence, news clippings, minutes, reports, bids, specifications and drawings relating to collapse and rebuilding of Quebec Bridge. There is also a small scrapbook containing material on the railroad bridge disaster at Ashtabula, Ohio, 1876 Dec. 29.

Zone des notes

État de conservation

Source immédiate d'acquisition

Donated by J.A. Brown.

Classement

Langue des documents

  • anglais

Écriture des documents

Localisation des originaux

3083

Disponibilité d'autres formats

Restrictions d'accès

Open

Délais d'utilisation, de reproduction et de publication

Public domain

Instruments de recherche

Éléments associés

Éléments associés

Accroissements

No further accruals are expected

Identifiant(s) alternatif(s)

Zone du numéro normalisé

Numéro normalisé

Mots-clés

Mots-clés - Sujets

Mots-clés - Lieux

Mots-clés - Noms

Mots-clés - Genre

Zone du contrôle

Identifiant de la description du document

Identifiant du service d'archives

Règles ou conventions

Statut

Niveau de détail

Dates de production, de révision et de suppression

Langue de la description

Langage d'écriture de la description

Sources

Zone des entrées

Sujets associés

Personnes et organismes associés

Lieux associés

Genres associés

Localisation physique

  • Tablette: 3083