Royal Gorge Bridge — bridge
Image by Lexus_ from Pixabay

Royal Gorge Bridge

  • 2 min read
  • 38.462° N 105.325° W

Interesting facts

  • In 1929 it took the title of world's highest bridge from the Sidi M'Cid Bridge in Constantine, Algeria.
  • Measured with a laser rangefinder, the main span comes out at about 938 feet, noticeably more than the 880 feet usually quoted.
  • A gravel businessman who bought the railway through the gorge in 1998 found he also owned the air rights where the bridge hangs.
  • Those air rights had cost the bridge only $200 a year since 1929; after he demanded $750,000 a year, the city settled for a one-time $99,000.
  • Texas oilman Clint Murchison bought the bridge's leasing rights in 1947 and, a longtime employee said, never once came to see it.
  • Since 1956 the operator has paid Cañon City a share of revenue instead of a flat $1,000 a year, helping it keep the lowest property tax rate in Colorado.
  • The 1980s renovation cost over $2.8 million, more than the original construction even after adjusting for inflation.
  • By the time of the 2013 fire, more than 26 million people were estimated to have visited the bridge since it opened.
  • The Cloudscraper zip line beside the bridge, opened in 2015, is described as the highest zip line in North America.

Why it is worth it

For more than seventy years the highest bridge on earth stood not on a highway but at a tourist park in the Colorado Rockies. The Royal Gorge Bridge hangs across the Royal Gorge, a narrow canyon cut by the Arkansas River west of Cañon City, with its wooden deck about 955 feet (291 metres) above the water. From the moment it opened in 1929 until 2001, when the Liuguanghe Bridge in China surpassed it, no bridge in the world stood higher; it remained the highest suspension bridge until 2003 and is still the highest bridge in the United States.

The bridge was never meant to carry through traffic. It was conceived purely as an attraction by Lon P. Piper, head of a San Antonio company, who brought in George E. Cole as chief engineer. Work began on 5 June 1929 and was finished that November, in about six months, without a single death or serious injury, for a cost of $350,000. The suspension span between the two 150-foot towers is usually given as 880 feet (about 268 metres), the full length is 1,260 feet, and the 18-foot-wide steel deck is surfaced with 1,292 wooden planks. In 1931 an incline railway was laid down a cleft beside the north end to the canyon floor, and in 1937 floodlights were installed to light up the bridge and the rock walls at night. The structure was renovated in 1980–84 with new cable anchors and suspension rods, and in 1983 the bridge and the incline were listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

The bridge belongs to Cañon City, the seat of Fremont County, a small town on the Arkansas River downstream of the canyon, which leases it to a park operator. In June 2013 a wildfire swept both rims of the gorge and destroyed 48 of the park's 52 buildings along with the aerial tram; the bridge itself lost only about a hundred deck planks. Far below, the tracks of the Royal Gorge Route Railroad follow the river along the canyon floor.

Getting there

The bridge is reached by Fremont County Road 3A, which leaves U.S. Route 50 about 10 miles (16 km) west of Cañon City; Cañon City itself is about 8 km from the bridge in a straight line. Vehicles do not cross the bridge, and all access is through the park's north entrance. The nearest airport is Colorado Springs Airport (COS), about 66 km away.

On these lists

The Most Beautiful Places in Colorado 14The Most Beautiful Places in the United States 228The Most Beautiful Bridges in the United States 5The Greatest Engineering Wonders in the United States 26The Most Beautiful Bridges 63The Greatest Engineering Wonders 271

From the encyclopaedia

The Royal Gorge Bridge is a tourist attraction in the United States near Cañon City, Colorado within Royal Gorge Bridge and Park, a 360-acre (150 ha) amusement park located along the edge of the Royal Gorge around both ends of the bridge. The bridge crosses the gorge 955 feet (291 m) above the Arkansas River and held the record of highest bridge in the world from 1929 until 2001 when it was surpassed by the Liuguanghe Bridge in China. The Royal Gorge Bridge maintained the title of the world's highest suspension bridge until the Beipan River Guanxing Highway Bridge was completed in 2003, also in China. The bridge remains the highest bridge in the United States and was among the ten highest bridges in the world until 2012.

Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

38.46167, -105.32500per Wikidata