It’s rare to celebrate the anniversary of a bridge, but then again Baltimore’s 175-year-old Thomas Viaduct is no ordinary structure.

The same year that a demented house painter tried to kill President Andrew Jackson with two flintlock pistols that misfired, a gang of Irish masons and free black laborers finished what would prove to be the most enduring bridge in America.

Spanning the Patapsco River nine miles west of downtown Baltimore, the Thomas Viaduct has been constantly carrying trains ever since it was opened on July 4, 1835, ranging from presidential specials to heavy freight trains to today’s MARC commuter service on the Camden Line to Washington.

This Monday the bridge, with its eight graceful arches composed of some 60,000 tons of granite ashlar cut from local quarries, will be feted by the Friends of Patapsco Valley and Heritage Greenway.

The celebration will include a 3D animation video showing how the bridge was built, a model train display, a re-enactment of the bridge’s strategic role during the Civil War, music and food. Several exhibits are aimed specifically for children.

It will be held from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Avalon Area of Patapsco Valley State Park. Visitors should take Washington Blvd (U.S. 1) to South Street in Elkridge, where signs will direct them to the viaduct and the park.

Creating an Overlook

The event is part of a spirited campaign by railroad historian James D. Dilts, landscape architect John B. Slater and artist John Ferguson to clean up the viaduct’s scruffy appearance and create a park overlooking the now weed-choked north end as a public viewing area.

The trio wants CSX Transportation, owner of the structure, to pressure-wash and re-point the gray-brown masonry, install a perimeter railing mimicking the original cast-iron design and restore a commemorative obelisk that lies neglected along the tracks.

Additionally, they have put in a request to the Maryland Department of Natural Resources to provide an access path from the Avalon Welcome Station to the overlook park and develop signage that will tell the story of the viaduct and the people who built it.

A Lifelong Interest

For Dilts, the bridge has been a source of inspiration ever since he stumbled upon it in the late 1960s. Dilts went on to write The Great Road (1993), the definitive history of the pioneer Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, which built the structure and named it after its first president, Philip Evan Thomas.

Remarkably, the project was placed in the hands of 27-year-old Benjamin H. Latrobe Jr., who was not a civil engineer and had never built a bridge. Skeptics proliferated. In his book, Dilts describes the bouts of sleeplessness and nervous ailments endured by Latrobe as he designed and oversaw construction.

“He complained of shortness of breath, indigestion and fainting, and indulged in some truly awful remedies to relieve these symptoms. He was bled, cupped and purged. He drank turpentine. He took a variety of the patent medicines and finally settled on morphine and laudanum, an opium derivative, which allowed him to sleep at night,” Dilts said.

When completed, the 704-foot long structure, rising 60 feet above the river, was hailed as one of America’s great man-made wonders. It was painted and photographed by dozens of artists through the years.

So popular was the viaduct in the middle 19th century that the B&O commissioned Baltimore architect E. Francis Baldwin to erect a hotel on the north end of the bridge. Used as a rural vacation spot and a comfortable place for passengers to change trains, the Viaduct Hotel featured formal gardens and rustic paths overlooking the Patapsco Valley.

The viewing park proposed by Dilts and his colleagues would be sited near a platform used by travelers and sightseers before the hotel was closed in the 1920s.

Demolition of the hotel and station came in the 1950s, marking the start of the viaduct’s lapse into obscurity. “Partly because of its remote location and partly because outsiders can see things the natives often take for granted, the Thomas Viaduct is better known to the world’s bridge and railway enthusiasts than it is to people in Baltimore,” Dilts remarked.

Mark Reutter is the former editor of Railroad History.

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