The Longteng Bridge (), officially known as the Yutengping Bridge (), is a former

bridge A bridge is a structure built to Span (engineering), span a physical obstacle (such as a body of water, valley, road, or railway) without blocking the path underneath. It is constructed for the purpose of providing passage over the obstacle, whi ...

in Longteng Village, Sanyi Township,

Miaoli County Miaoli is a county (Taiwan), county in western Taiwan. Miaoli is bordered by Hsinchu County and Hsinchu City to the north, Taichung to the south, and the Taiwan Strait to the west. Miaoli is Regions of Taiwan, classified as "central Taiwan" by t ...

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia. The main geography of Taiwan, island of Taiwan, also known as ''Formosa'', lies between the East China Sea, East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocea ...

History

Tzu chiang Express and Yutengping Bridge

The bridge was built in 1906 during Japanese rule, and was named . It was designed by the American civil engineers

Theodore Cooper Theodore Cooper (January 13, 1839 – August 24, 1919) was an American civil engineer. He may be best known as consulting engineer on the Quebec Bridge that collapsed in 1907. Biography Upon receiving a degree in civil engineering from Resselaer I ...

and C.C. Schneider for the colonial government. Both the bridge and nearby village (modern-day ''Longteng'') were named after a local plant '' Millettia pachycarpa'' () believed to be poisonous to fish; legends believed that a malevolent carp in a nearby lake was responsible for misfortune, and residents planted the shrub to counter the carp. The original design consists of a central steel

truss A truss is an assembly of ''members'' such as Beam (structure), beams, connected by ''nodes'', that creates a rigid structure. In engineering, a truss is a structure that "consists of two-force members only, where the members are organized so ...

flanked by multiple brick masonry arch approaches. The April

1935 Shinchiku-Taichū earthquake The 1935 Shinchiku-Taichū earthquake occurred with a Richter magnitude of 7.1 (7.1 Mw) in April 1935 with its epicenter in Miaoli, Taiwan (then part of Shinchiku Prefecture). It was the deadliest earthquake in Taiwan's recorded history, ...

and subsequent aftershocks in July damaged the bridge beyond repair. Several masonry arches were cracked and the north and south ends of the truss became misaligned. A new iron bridge was built in 1938, 80 meters to the west of Longteng Bridge, and the central truss was dismantled once the new bridge opened. ''Longteng'' of the bridge's common name is from the name of Longteng Village and gained use after the Japanese handover of Taiwan. The 1999

921 earthquake The Chi-Chi earthquake (later also known as the Jiji earthquake, 921 Earthquake, or the great earthquake of September 21), was a 7.3 ML or 7.7 Mw earthquake which occurred in Jiji (Chi-Chi), Nantou County, Taiwan on 21 September 199 ...

caused one of the remaining piers to collapse and as a result, the county government decided to rededicate the bridge's remains as a monument to the two deadliest earthquakes in Taiwan's history. It was placed on the list of Taiwan's Cultural Heritage Assets (Historical Site #KA09602001112) on 25 November 2003.

Architecture

The 1938 bridge stands at 50 meters tall and 200 meters long, making it the highest iron bridge in Taiwan. The ruined 1907 bridge piers are covered with white

tung tree ''Vernicia fordii'' (usually known as the tung tree (, ''tóng'') and also as the tung-oil or tungoil tree (), the kalo nut tree, and the China wood-oil tree) is a species of flowering plant in the Euphorbiaceae, spurge family Euphorbiaceae. It i ...

flowers () every year from April to May, marking the height of its popularity as a tourist and hiking destination.

Transportation

The bridge is accessible by taxi south from Sanyi Station of

Taiwan Railways Administration Taiwan Railways Administration (TRA) was a governmental agency in Taiwan which operated Taiwan Railway from 1948 to 2023. It managed, maintained, and operated conventional passenger and freight Rail transport, railway services on of track. Pa ...

. Between 2010 and 2011, the station was accessible by Yutengping Station, which has since been removed.

References

External links

* * * {{cite web , url=http://www.tonyhuang39.com/tony0528/tony0528.html , title=Tony的自然人文旅記（0528）, trans-title=Tony's Natural and Cultural Tour Memories (0528) , date=22 May 2007 , author=Huang, Tony , website=Tony Huang , accessdate=21 March 2015 , language=zh Bridges to nowhere 1907 establishments in Taiwan Bridges completed in 1907 Buildings and structures in Miaoli County

History

Architecture

Transportation

See also

References

External links