Construction of the Shelby Street Bridge, 1908 March 16

A view of the construction of the Sparkman Street Bridge, later renamed Shelby Street Bridge, built along the Cumberland River in downtown Nashville. The original official name of the bridge was the Broadway Bridge. The bridge was completed in 1909, spanning the Cumberland River to link East Nashville to the downtown area. The construction of this bridge was considered very innovative, with concrete trusses making a new underneath support system. The Nashville Bridge Company was on the east side of the river. The Foster & Creighton Company were the contractors for the bridge (specifically Foster-Creighton-Gould Company), a family-owned construction company founded in Nashville circa 1885 by Wilbur Fisk Foster and Robert T. Creighton. In 1986, the bridge was added to the National Register of Historic Places. In 2003, the bridge reopened as a pedestrian walkway. The bridge was the first one in North America to have concrete arched trusses. Howard M. Jones, a railroad engineer, was employed by the county as its designer. These digital reproductions were scanned from the original family scrapbook album belonging to Charles W. Cook, Jr. 1 digital photograph.