Skip to main content

Experiments In Timber

April 2023
1min read

Stone bridges were strongest, but America, with its scant investment capital and lack of time, was frequently forced to turn to its timber supplies. Flimsy trestles were thrown up in weeks to help the railroads push west. Most of them have long since been replaced, but the one at left, built by the Great Northern Railroad at Hanover, Montana, in 1930, still carries freight. In contrast to its crude complexity, the engaging little shed above enjoys the distinction of being the shortest covered railroad bridge in the world. Built around the turn of the century by the St. Johnsbury & Lamoille County Railroad at Wolcott, Vermont, the ninety-foot span did yeoman service until the line was recently abandoned. The bridge, however, still survives.

We hope you enjoy our work.

Please support this 72-year tradition of trusted historical writing and the volunteers that sustain it with a donation to American Heritage.

Donate

Stories published from "December 1973"

Authored by: David Lowe

“I do not admit that a woman can draw like that,” said Degas when he saw one of her pictures

Authored by: Joan Paterson Kerr

OF BALLOONS, THE FIRST AIR-MAIL LETTERS, AND THE EVER-ENTERPRISING FRANKLIN FAMILY

Authored by: Richard M. Ketchum

Clark’s career was like the passage of a meteor—a quick, fiery moment that lit up the heavens for all to see and wonder at, then vanishing in oblivion.

Authored by: Bernard Bailyn

The Most Uncommon Pamphlet of the Revolution

Authored by: Gerald Carson

and grew, and grew, and grew

Authored by: David Flowden

“De railroad bridges’s A sad song in de air…”

Authored by: Kenneth McArdle

FOR SEVEN DECADES OUR EBULLIENT COUSIN INSTRUCTED US ON EVERYTHING: THE BOERS, PROHIBITION, HITLER, CHARLIE CHAPLIN’S FEET, AND THE COMMON CAUSE OF THE ENGLISH-SPEAKING PEOPLES

Authored by: Bernard A. Weisberger

A TALE OF RECONSTRUCTION
Of the turbulent career of Pinckney B. S. Pinchback, adventurer, operator, and first black governor of Louisiana. He reminds one powerfully, says the author, of the late Adam Clay ton Powell, Jr.

Featured Articles

The world’s most prominent actress risked her career by standing up to one of Hollywood’s mega-studios, proving that behind the beauty was also a very savvy businesswoman. 

Rarely has the full story been told about how a famed botanist, a pioneering female journalist, and First Lady Helen Taft battled reluctant bureaucrats to bring Japanese cherry trees to Washington. 

Often thought to have been a weak president, Carter was strong-willed in doing what he thought was right, regardless of expediency or the political fallout.

Why have thousands of U.S. banks failed over the years? The answers are in our history and politics.

In his Second Inaugural Address, Abraham Lincoln embodied leading in a time of polarization, political disagreement, and differing understandings of reality.