Spring Garden Street Bridge

As early as 1693, a ferry operated, crossing the Schuylkill River at Fairmount, the hill on which the Philadelphia Museum of Art now stands.

For the Upper Ferry site, bridgebuilder Louis Wernwag designed "The Colossus", the longest single-span wooden bridge in the United States.

[3] Five miles upstream from Fairmount, iron manufacturers Josiah White and Erksine Hazard built a wire-cable footbridge in 1816.

To replace "The Colossus," Charles Ellet, Jr. designed the first major wire-cable suspension bridge in the United States.

[5] The 358-foot-long (109 m) "Wire Bridge at Fairmount" was commissioned by the City of Philadelphia, and opened to traffic on January 2, 1842.

The Upper Ferry Bridge in an 1813 engraving. "The Colossus" (1813) had the longest single-span of any wooden bridge in the United States.
"The New Suspension Bridge at Fairmount, Philadelphia" (1842). This was the first major wire-cable suspension bridge built in the United States.
Callowhill Street Bridge (1874-75), in a circa 1901 photograph.
Spring Garden Street Bridge in 1977.