The Ohio Bridge: Cincinnati’s Roebling Suspension Bridge, 1846-1939

When Cincinnati’s Roebling Suspension Bridge, connecting the Queen City to Covington, Kentucky, opened in 1866 it was the longest suspension bridge in the world at just over 1000 feet. The need for such a bridge stretched back decades and its genesis was the incorporation of the Covington and Cincinnati Bridge Company in 1846. While the bridge’s commercial usefulness was quickly outpaced by railroad bridges, it remains today the iconic symbol of Cincinnati, a testament to the city’s nineteenth century optimism and prominence. The Ohio Bridge, originally published in 1939, details the early history of the bridge from mere idea to completion and up to 1939, including its corporate history, the impact of the Civil War, its engineering and construction, and the Roebling Firm.