User:Melofors/bridge1

An unnamed arch bridge carrying Maryland Route 144, as Frederick Avenue, crosses Gwynns Falls and CSX's Hanover Subdivision railroad line in Baltimore, Maryland, United States. Replaced multiple times over the centuries, it existed as early as 1850.

History
The bridge was presumably first constructed with the laying of the Old Frederick Road wagon trail sometime before 1760 by German settlers, after the founding of Frederick in 1745. In the 1790s, the easternmost portion of the road containing the bridge became part of the new Frederick Turnpike, assuming its eastern terminus. The crossing is visible in maps as early as 1794.

The bridge was a wooden covered bridge as early as 1850, when it was mentioned in a Baltimore Sun ad as a covered bridge carrying the Frederick Turnpike. An 1861 article described the bridge as "the old covered wooden bridge so long used for the [Frederick] turnpike crossway."

With the construction of the Catonsville Railway in the early 1860s, the covered bridge was demolished and replaced with an iron bridge by Bollman and Tegmeyer, named the Wilkens Viaduct. Opened on November 27, 1861, it was built immediately south of the location of the covered bridge and seven feet taller. The bridge washed out by December 1866, when bid proposals for a new bridge were advertised. A temporary replacement was constructed and washed away in mid-August 1867, by which time a new iron bridge was being constructed.

The current concrete two-span arch bridge was constructed in 1930. It was closed in September 2013 for reconstruction, completely demolished by December of that year, and reopened in 2015, costing $14 million. A temporary pedestrian and utility bridge was built during the construction.