Union Bridge Company

The Union Bridge Company was a bridge fabricator and contractor with works in Buffalo, New York, (believed closed in 1890 per HAER references) and Athens, Pennsylvania. The Union Bridge company was formed in 1884 as a merger of several other bridge-building firms. Partners included George S. Field of Buffalo, Edumund Hayes of Buffalo, Charles MacDonald of New York City, Thomas C. Clarke of Seabright, NY and Charles Stweart Maurice of Athens, PA. (from Maurice Papers, Southern Historical Collection, Library of the University of NC, Chapel Hill, NC.)

Some sources (such as the Saugatuck reference) indicate that the Union Bridge Company may have been absorbed into the American Bridge Company in the 1900 consolidation.

A company with the same name, chartered in 1873, was involved in a US Supreme Court case in 1907 involving compliance with a law giving the Secretary of War the authority to order removal of obstructions to navigation on rivers and waterways. It is not yet clear if this is the same company or not.

Notable projects

* Niagara Cantilever Bridge (1883)
* Poughkeepsie Bridge (1889)
* Coraopolis Bridge (1927)
* Hawkesbury River Railway Bridge (Hawkesbury River, New South Wales, Australia)
* Pasco-Kennewick Bridge (1922)
* Provo River Railroad Bridge (1884) (small through truss bridge, notable for having been disassembled, reused as a shorter bridge, then disassembled and reused as a still shorter bridge)
* Winona Railroad Bridge (1891)
* Saugatuck River Bridge (1884) Connecticut swing bridge. Hand cranked. Claimed oldest extant movable bridge in Connecticut.
* Cairo Bridge over the Ohio
* Memphis Bridge over the Mississippi

External links

* [http://en.structurae.de/firms/data/index.cfm?ID=f000658 entry] at Structurae.de (empty of company info but source for some of the notable projects on the list)
* [http://www.nycroads.com/crossings/hudson-river-bridge/ article} at nycroads.com about proposed Hudson River crossings, including one from the Union Bridge Company
* [http://www.lib.rpi.edu/cgi-bin/bulletin.pl?vol=30&iss=1x&pg=33 archive] from RPI illustration of Poughkeepsie Bridge with notation "Poughkeepsie Bridge - Built by the Union Bridge Company - Charles Macdonald '57 President - Robert Escobar '57 Engineer"
* [http://www.lib.rpi.edu/cgi-bin/bulletin.pl?vol=30&iss=1x&pg=36 archive] from RPI illustration of Hawkesbury River Bridge (Australia) with notation "Hawkesbury River Bridge - Designed and constructed by the Union Bridge Company - Charles Macdonald '57 of the Union Bridge Company - Robert Escobar '57, Engineer, of the Union Bridge Company"
* [http://www.bullsheet.com/news/Poughkeepsiebridge.html NRHP] application archive giving ref to Poughkeepsie Bridge and Niagara Cantilever Bridge both being built by UBC
* [http://www.hawkesburyriver.org.au/History.htm Hawkesbury River] history giving reference to bridge and company
* [http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/cgi-bin/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=204&invol=364 Supreme Court case] of 1907, "Union Bridge Company vs. United States" from findlaw.com (may or may not be the same company)
* [http://www.past-inc.org/historic-bridges/movable-saugatuck-right.html Saugatuck] swing bridge, reference claims that UBC was absorbed by ABC in 1900.