Boston Bridge Works (also known as Boston Bridge Works, Inc.) was an

engineering Engineering is the use of scientific method, scientific principles to design and build machines, structures, and other items, including bridges, tunnels, roads, vehicles, and buildings. The discipline of engineering encompasses a broad rang ...

firm, building bridges throughout

New England New England is a region comprising six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York to the west and by the Canadian province ...

, during the late nineteenth and early

twentieth 20 (twenty; Roman numeral XX) is the natural number following 19 and preceding 21. A group of twenty units may also be referred to as a score. In mathematics *20 is a pronic number. *20 is a tetrahedral number as 1, 4, 10, 20. *20 is the ...

centuries. Operating out of

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the capital city, state capital and List of municipalities in Massachusetts, most populous city of the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financ ...

, they specialized in the

drafting Drafting or draughting may refer to: * Campdrafting, an Australian equestrian sport * Drafting (aerodynamics), slipstreaming * Drafting (writing), writing something that is likely to be amended * Technical drawing, the act and discipline of compo ...

, design and implementation of both

road A road is a linear way for the conveyance of traffic that mostly has an improved surface for use by vehicles (motorized and non-motorized) and pedestrians. Unlike streets, the main function of roads is transportation. There are many types of ...

and

railway Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in Track (rail transport), tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the ...

truss bridges A truss bridge is a bridge whose load-bearing superstructure is composed of a truss, a structure of connected elements, usually forming triangular units. The connected elements (typically straight) may be stressed from tension, compression, or ...

, a common bridge style of that period. The establishment of Boston Bridge Works was in the year 1876 by David H. Andrews, building notable bridges, such as the 1892

Harvard Bridge The Harvard Bridge (also known locally as the MIT Bridge, the Massachusetts Avenue Bridge, and the "Mass. Ave." Bridge) is a steel haunched girder bridge carrying Massachusetts Avenue ( Route 2A) over the Charles River and connecting Back Bay, ...

between

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge beca ...

and Boston. The company also constructed bridges for many New England railways such as the

Boston and Maine Railroad The Boston and Maine Railroad was a U.S. Class I railroad in northern New England. Originally chartered in 1835, it became part of what was the Pan Am Railways network in 1983 (most of which was purchased by CSX in 2022). At the end of 1970 ...

and

Boston and Providence Railroad The Boston and Providence Railroad was a railroad company in the states of Massachusetts and Rhode Island which connected its namesake cities. It opened in two sections in 1834 and 1835 - one of the first rail lines in the United States - with a ...

. Employees of the company were engineers and

contractors A general contractor, main contractor or prime contractor is responsible for the day-to-day oversight of a construction site, management of vendors and trades, and the communication of information to all involved parties throughout the course of ...

for steel bridges, buildings,

roofs A roof ( : roofs or rooves) is the top covering of a building, including all materials and constructions necessary to support it on the walls of the building or on uprights, providing protection against rain, snow, sunlight, extremes of tempe ...

, and

railway turntables In rail terminology, a railway turntable or wheelhouse is a device for turning railway rolling stock, usually locomotives, so that they can be moved back in the direction from which they came. Naturally, it is especially used in areas where e ...

. The general offices, for most of their operating years, were at 47 Winter Street, Boston, with a plant in

East Cambridge East Cambridge is a neighborhood of Cambridge, Massachusetts. Referred to in modern times as Area 1, East Cambridge is bounded by the Charles River and the Charlestown, Boston, Charlestown neighborhood of Boston on the east, the Somerville, Mass ...

. In August of 1909 a lawsuit was brought to the

Massachusetts Superior Court The Massachusetts Superior Court (also known as the Superior Court Department of the Trial Court) is a trial court department in Massachusetts. The Superior Court has original jurisdiction in civil actions over $50,000, and in matters where equit ...

claiming ''Boston Bridge Works'' and the ''New England Structural Company'' of wrongdoing in a

civil suit - A lawsuit is a proceeding by a party or parties against another in the civil court of law. The archaic term "suit in law" is found in only a small number of laws still in effect today. The term "lawsuit" is used in reference to a civil actio ...

. The suit alleged the two companies were in a collusive

bidding war A bid price is the highest price that a buyer (i.e., bidder) is willing to pay for some goods. It is usually referred to simply as the "bid". In bid and ask, the bid price stands in contrast to the ask price or "offer", and the difference betwee ...

. The city of Boston claimed that the two companies had a

monopoly A monopoly (from Greek el, μόνος, mónos, single, alone, label=none and el, πωλεῖν, pōleîn, to sell, label=none), as described by Irving Fisher, is a market with the "absence of competition", creating a situation where a speci ...

in the area. Bids for the ''Broadway bridge'' consisted of by the New England Structural Company and by Boston Bridge Works. The contract was awarded to Boston Bridge Works but due to losing the lawsuit, they had to pay back to the city of Boston. After both a fire at their Cambridge plant, and declining contracts during the Great Depression, Boston Bridge Works went out of business in 1938.

Notable bridges

References

Further reading