The Chicago, Burlington, & Quincy Railroad was the first railroad to link Chicago and the Mississippi River, in the 1850s. This forty-stall roundhouse, large even for its time, became a major center for railroad activity for the CB&Q. It served as a repair and construction facility from which more locomotives and cars than any other CB&Q installation were built. Steam engines, passenger cars, freight cars, precision parts, tools, and machines were designed and built, beginning about 1858.
1850-1859
YearAdded:
Image Credit:
Courtesy Flickr/EarlRShumaker (CC BY 2.0)
Image Caption:
Chicago Burlington & Quincy Railroad Roundhouse
Era_date_from:
1850s
1988
Nicholas Montgomery Powers built the bridge. It was first constructed behind the village, then taken apart and reassembled over the stream. Some residents questioned the idea of re-constructing it, but Powers was so confident of the bridge's durability that he sat on the roof when the final trestles supporting it were removed. From his perch he reportedly said: "If the bridge goes down, I never want to see the sun rise again!"
YearAdded:
Image Credit:
Courtesy Flickr/Doug Kerr (CC BY-SA 2.0)
Image Caption:
The view entering the Blenheim Bridge, before it was destroyed.
Era_date_from:
1855
1983
Soon after gold was discovered at Sutter's Mill near Sacramento in 1848, General John Bidwell found gold near the Middle Fork of the Feather River. His discovery brought hordes of miners to the scene and Bidwell Bar was born. The Bidwell Bar Suspension Bridge over the Feather River was one of several suspension bridges built in the region in the 1850s, and is the only one that remains.
YearAdded:
Image Credit:
Public Domain (National Park Service)
Image Caption:
The original Bidwell Bar Suspension Bridge (1856), crossing over the Feather River
Era_date_from:
1856
1967
By:
Summer 1986 | Volume 2, Issue 1
Across the way from the portentous WPA Romanism of the National Archives in Washington, D.C., a cheerful stand of Federal buildings has managed to survive, and in one of them is a machine that changed the way the world looks.
Fate has put this mechanism in the hands of Fred Litwin, and it couldn’t…
