Company type | Subsidiary |
---|---|
Industry | Civil Engineering |
Founded | 1900 |
Headquarters | Coraopolis, Pennsylvania, U.S. |
Key people | Frank Renda, CEO |
Products | bridge building construction marine structures |
Revenue | $328 million USD |
Number of employees | 500 |
Parent | Southland Holdings LLC |
Website | americanbridge.net |
The American Bridge Company is a heavy/civil construction firm that specializes in building and renovating bridges and other large, complex structures. Founded in 1900, the company is headquartered in Coraopolis, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Pittsburgh. The firm has built many bridges in the U.S. and elsewhere; the Historic American Engineering Record notes at least 81. [1] American Bridge has also built or helped build the Willis Tower, the Empire State Building, the Chrysler Building, launch pads, resorts, and more. During World War II, it produced tank landing ships (LSTs) for the United States Navy. In 2020, American Bridge Company was acquired by Southland Holdings LLC.
American Bridge Company was founded in April 1900, when J.P. Morgan & Co. led a consolidation of 28 of the largest U.S. steel fabricators and constructors. [2] The company's roots extend to the late 1860s, when one of the consolidated firms, Keystone Bridge Company, built the Eads Bridge at St. Louis, the first steel bridge over the Mississippi River and still in use. In 1902, the company became a subsidiary of United States Steel as part of the Steel Trust consolidation.
The company pioneered the use of steel as a construction material; developing the means and methods for fabrication and construction that allowed it to be widely used in buildings, bridges, vessels, and other plate applications.[ citation needed ] It went on to do work across the nation and around the world.
During World War II, the company built warships for the U.S. Navy. In 1944, American painter Thomas Hart Benton recorded the construction and launch of LST 768, producing numerous drawings and a painting, Cut the Line. [3]
The company went private in 1987 and was sold to Continental Engineering Corporation in 1988. [4]
The town of Ambridge, Pennsylvania, was an American Bridge company town (thus the name "Ambridge"), and is near their current headquarters of Coraopolis, Pennsylvania. Both municipalities are on the Ohio River near Pittsburgh, with access to many steel suppliers, as well as to waterborne and rail transport, to allow shipment of components and subassemblies.
This is a representative list, not an exhaustive one.
Built the longest concrete segmental cable stay bridge in the United States:
Built the longest suspension bridge in South America, and one of the longest in Europe:
Built the world's longest arch bridge on three occasions:
Built the world's longest self-supporting continuous truss bridge:
Renovations of existing bridges:
Built the world's tallest building on numerous occasions.
Built many other well-known buildings.
Built the world's largest building by volume twice.
Built two large domed stadium structures.
The Mackinac Bridge is a suspension bridge that connects the Upper and Lower peninsulas of the U.S. state of Michigan. It spans the Straits of Mackinac, a body of water connecting Lake Michigan and Lake Huron, two of the Great Lakes. Opened in 1957, the 26,372-foot-long bridge is the world's 27th-longest main span and is the longest suspension bridge between anchorages in the Western Hemisphere. The Mackinac Bridge is part of Interstate 75 (I-75) and carries the Lake Michigan and Huron components of the Great Lakes Circle Tour across the straits; it is also a segment of the U.S. North Country National Scenic Trail. The bridge connects the city of St. Ignace to the north with the village of Mackinaw City to the south.
A suspension bridge is a type of bridge in which the deck is hung below suspension cables on vertical suspenders. The first modern examples of this type of bridge were built in the early 1800s. Simple suspension bridges, which lack vertical suspenders, have a long history in many mountainous parts of the world.
Coraopolis is a borough in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, United States, along the Ohio River. The population was 5,559 at the 2020 census.
Ambridge is a borough in Beaver County, Pennsylvania, United States. Incorporated in 1905 as a company town by the American Bridge Company, Ambridge is located 16 miles (25 km) northwest of Pittsburgh, along the Ohio River. The population was 6,972 at the 2020 census.
A cable-stayed bridge has one or more towers, from which cables support the bridge deck. A distinctive feature are the cables or stays, which run directly from the tower to the deck, normally forming a fan-like pattern or a series of parallel lines. This is in contrast to the modern suspension bridge, where the cables supporting the deck are suspended vertically from the main cable, anchored at both ends of the bridge and running between the towers. The cable-stayed bridge is optimal for spans longer than cantilever bridges and shorter than suspension bridges. This is the range within which cantilever bridges would rapidly grow heavier, and suspension bridge cabling would be more costly.
A cantilever bridge is a bridge built using structures that project horizontally into space, supported on only one end. For small footbridges, the cantilevers may be simple beams; however, large cantilever bridges designed to handle road or rail traffic use trusses built from structural steel, or box girders built from prestressed concrete.
Arrow Dynamics was an American manufacturing and engineering company that specialized in designing and building amusement park rides, especially roller coasters. Based in Clearfield, Utah, the company was the successor to Arrow Development (1946–1981) and Arrow Huss (1981–1986), which were responsible for several influential advancements in the amusement and theme park industries. Among the most significant was tubular steel track, which provided a smoother ride than the railroad style rails commonly used prior to the 1960s on wooden roller coasters. The Matterhorn Bobsleds at Disneyland, built in 1959, was Arrow's first roller coaster project.
Matterhorn Bobsleds is a attraction that consists of a pair of intertwined steel roller coasters running through a fabricated mountain. It is located at Disneyland in Anaheim, California and is modeled after the Matterhorn, a mountain in the Alps on the border between Switzerland and Italy. It is the first known tubular steel track roller coaster. Located on the border between Tomorrowland and Fantasyland, it employs forced perspective to seem larger.
David Barnard Steinman was an American civil engineer. He was the designer of the Mackinac Bridge and many other notable bridges, and a published author. He grew up in New York City's lower Manhattan, and lived with the ambition of making his mark on the Brooklyn Bridge that he lived under. In 1906 he earned a bachelor's degree from City College and in 1909, a Master of Arts from Columbia University and a Doctorate in 1911. He also received an honorary Doctor of Science in Engineering on 15 April 1952 from degree mill Sequoia University, but would distance himself from it soon after a 1957 inquiry raised doubts over its legitimacy, and did not mention the qualifications in his biographies. He was awarded the Franklin Institute's Louis E. Levy Medal in 1957.
The 25 de Abril Bridge is a suspension bridge connecting the city of Lisbon, capital of Portugal, to the municipality of Almada on the left (south) bank of the Tagus River. It has a main span length of 1,013 metres (3,323 ft), making it the 48th longest suspension bridge in the world.
Gustav Lindenthal was a civil engineer who designed the Queensboro and Hell Gate bridges in New York City, among other bridges. Lindenthal's work was greatly affected by his pursuit for perfection and his love of art. Having received little formal education and no degree in civil engineering, Lindenthal based his work on his prior experience and techniques used by other engineers of the time.
The Coraopolis Bridge[1] is a girder bridge over the back channel of the Ohio River connecting Grand Avenue on Neville Island to Ferree Street in Coraopolis, Pennsylvania. It opened in 1995 to replace a structure of historic significance. The original Pratt/Bowstring/Pennsylvania[2] through truss spans, designed by Theodore Cooper, were formerly the (third) Sixth Street Bridge, spanning the Allegheny River, in downtown Pittsburgh, and were built in 1892 by the Union Bridge Company. They were floated downstream by the Foundation Company in 1927 rather than being demolished when the bridge was removed to enable construction of the present (fourth) Three Sisters (Pittsburgh) Sixth Street Self-anchored suspension bridge. However, by the late 1980s, the old bridge could no longer support traffic volumes and was replaced by a newer structure.
Merritt-Chapman & Scott, nicknamed "The Black Horse of the Sea", was a noted marine salvage and construction firm of the United States, with worldwide operations. The chief predecessor company was founded in the 1860s by Israel Merritt, but a large number of other firms were merged in over the course of the company's history. It was taken over in the 1950s by famed corporate raider, Louis E. Wolfson. It went into liquidation in 1967.
The Ambridge–Aliquippa Bridge is a steel cantilever through truss bridge which crosses the Ohio River at Ambridge, Pennsylvania. The bridge was originally named the Ambridge-Woodlawn Bridge but was soon renamed Ambridge-Aliquippa when Woodlawn was eclipsed by the rapid expansion of the Aliquippa Works of the Jones & Laughlin Steel Company. Ambridge was incorporated in 1910 - named after the American Bridge Company which had significant operations along the Ohio River opposite the Jones & Laughlin Steel Company.
Japan is a cultural pavilion representing the country of the same name as part of the World Showcase area of EPCOT at the Walt Disney World Resort near Orlando, Florida. Its location is between The American Adventure and Morocco pavilions.
Roller coaster amusement rides have origins back to ice slides constructed in 18th-century Russia. Early technology featured sleds or wheeled carts that were sent down hills of snow reinforced by wooden supports. The technology evolved in the 19th century to feature railroad track using wheeled cars that were securely locked to the track. Newer innovations emerged in the early 20th century with side friction and underfriction technologies to allow for greater speeds and sharper turns. By the mid-to-late 20th century, these elements intensified with the introduction of steel roller coaster designs and the ability to invert riders.
The Kellams Bridge, originally known as the Little Equinunk Bridge and officially the Kellams–Stalker Bridge is a 384-foot (117 m) underspanned suspension bridge across the Delaware River from Stalker village area of Manchester Township, Wayne County, Pennsylvania to Hankins hamlet in the town of Fremont, Sullivan County, New York. The single-lane steel grate deck bridge carries traffic of Kellam Bridge Road. The bridge is the only remaining underspan suspension bridge in the United States.
Buckland & Taylor Ltd. was a Canadian structural engineering firm specializing in bridge design and also research and building code development. It was founded in 1972 by Peter G. Buckland and Peter R. Taylor. Both had had experience with the design of major bridges. The firm continued until it was merged into COWI North America, a subsidiary of COWI A/S of Denmark, in 2015.
The William Cullen Bryant Viaduct is a viaduct that carries four lanes of Northern Boulevard over Hempstead Harbor between the Incorporated Villages of Flower Hill and Roslyn, in Nassau County, on Long Island, in New York, United States.
H&H is an American infrastructure engineering company specializing in the design and management of bridges and other transportation and architecture projects. The firm was founded in 1887 by John Alexander Low Waddell, a structural engineer who pioneered the design of large-scale moveable bridge. Originally incorporated in Kansas City, Missouri as J.A.L. Waddell, Consulting Engineer, the company was renamed throughout the early 20th century as Waddell added junior partners to the organization. In 1920, the firm moved its headquarters to New York City, where it would go on to design many important bridges int the area, such as Newark Bay Bridge (rail), the original Goethals Bridge, and Marine Parkway Bridge.