The Singing Bridge (also known as the St. Clair Street bridge) is a two-lane vehicle and pedestrian

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 ...

Frankfort, Kentucky Frankfort is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the U.S. state of Kentucky. It is a list of Kentucky cities, home rule-class city and the county seat, seat of Franklin County, Kentucky, Franklin County in the Upland Sou ...

that is so named because of the humming sound it makes when driven over. , the bridge carries over 5,000 vehicles per day across the

Kentucky River The Kentucky River is a tributary of the Ohio River in Kentucky, United States. The river and its tributaries drain much of eastern and central Kentucky, passing through the Eastern Coalfield, the Cumberland Mountains, and the Bluegrass re ...

along St. Clair Street to Bridge Street, joining Downtown Frankfort with South Frankfort. It is a contributing structure to the Frankfort Commercial Historic District on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

. The bridge gets its name from the

humming A hum ( /hʌm/ ) Latin: murmur, The sound of giraffes humming () is a sound made by producing a wordless tone with the mouth closed, forcing the sound to emerge from the nose. To hum is to produce such a sound, often with a melody. It is also ...

noise it makes as vehicles travel across its open-grate steel deck, which replaced a solid flooring in 1937.

History

The over-400 foot long bridge is a

Pennsylvania truss 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 ...

bridge built in 1893 by

King Bridge Company The King Iron Bridge & Manufacturing Company was a late-19th-century bridge building company located in Cleveland, Ohio. It was founded by Zenas King (1818–1892) in 1858 and subsequently managed by his sons, James A. King and Harry W. King an ...

, and was rehabilitated in 1956 and in 2010. The bridge originally carried U.S. Route 60 (US 60) until that highway was rerouted over the nearby War Mothers Memorial Bridge. In 1894 and 1909, two African-American men were lynched at the Singing Bridge. In 2022, the city of Frankfort issued an official apology to the families of the two men, and erected a historic marker at the site. In 2019, the 125-year-old bridge's load rating was reduced from 9 tons (1988) to 3 tons, then it was closed to vehicle traffic in late 2020 when an accident caused damage to a truss and rail. Repairs were started in March 2021 to repair the damage and to inspect for further damage caused when an unmoored floating marina's roof hit the bottom of the bridge on March 3, 2021, during high river levels. In 2024, the

Kentucky Transportation Cabinet The Kentucky Transportation Cabinet (KYTC) is Kentucky's state-funded government agency, agency charged with building and maintaining U.S. Highway System, federal highways and List of primary state highways in Kentucky, Kentucky state highways, ...

closed the Singing Bridge to all traffic as a result of structural safety concerns after a routine inspection. It is unknown when it will reopen.

Gallery

File:Singing Bridge Frankfort KY 2.jpg, View from on the bridge File:Singing Bridge Frankfort KY 3.jpg, View from Bridge Street File:Singing Bridge Frankfort KY 4.jpg, View from St. Clair Street

References

External links

Photos at King Bridge Manufacturing CompanyPhotos and technical detail at BridgeHunter.comTechnical detail at HistoricBridges.org
{{NRHP Road bridges on the National Register of Historic Places in Kentucky U.S. Route 60 Bridges of the United States Numbered Highway System Bridges over the Kentucky River Pennsylvania truss bridges in the United States National Register of Historic Places in Frankfort, Kentucky Transportation in Franklin County, Kentucky 1893 establishments in Kentucky Bridges completed in 1893 Historic district contributing properties in Kentucky King Bridge Company

History

Gallery

See also

References

External links