1st Avenue North Viaduct
The 1st Avenue North Viaduct is a steel-span viaduct between Carraway Boulevard (formerly 26th Street) and 34th Street, adjacent to Sloss Furnaces just to the east of downtown Birmingham. The bridge was designed and built by W. C. Howton Contracting, and completed in 1950. The 1st Avenue Viaduct currently carries four lanes of traffic for 1st Avenue North.
The first "permanent" viaduct on 1st Avenue (replacing earlier wooden structures) was the 2,632-foot long by 60-foot wide Weatherly Viaduct, completed in 1915. That span bridged the active railroad tracks near Sloss Furnaces and the Birmingham Terminal Station. Construction began on July 1, 1914. 13,550 cubic yards of concrete were used to construct the 31.5-foot-tall structure which carried two streetcar tracks on its 40-foot roadway and was flanked by two 10-foot-wide sidwalks. Though budgeted at $280,000, the actual cost for construction was $200,000, which was split among the Louisville & Nashville Railroad, the Southern Railway, the Alabama Great Southern Railroad, the Sloss-Sheffield Company, Birmingham Railway, Light & Power, and the City of Birmingham.
References
- Baker, Jerry (February 21, 2001) "Contractor built bridge to last." Birmingham News.
- "Facts About Birmingham's New Viaduct" (October 1915) The Birmingham Magazine.