Tuttle Bridge, Spanning Housatonic River on Golden Hill Road, Lee, Berkshire County, MA

Significance: The Tuttle Bridge is an excellent, virtually unaltered, example of William O. Douglas's 1885 patent, which he claimed improved upon his earlier (1878) patent for a lenticular truss bridge. The Tuttle Bridge incorporates the features of Douglas's second patent, including floor-line tension chords and strut braces. The bridge was fabricated and erected by one of New England's most prolific iron bridge builders, the Berlin Iron Bridge Company. Between 1878 and 1895 the company erected well over 600 lenticular trusses in New England and Upstate New York. The Tuttle Bridge is one of approximately fifty lenticular truss bridges to survive nationally, and one of only ten known surviving lenticular truss bridges in Massachusetts (eight of which are under Massachusetts Department of Public Works purview).

Unprocessed Field note material exists for this structure: FN-23

Survey number: HAER MA-105

Building/structure dates: 1885 Initial Construction

vehicular bridges lee tuttle bridge tuttle bridge housatonic housatonic river golden golden hill road berkshire berkshire county massachusetts berlin iron bridge company patrick harshbarger historic american engineering record massachusetts department of public works massachusetts historical commission martin stupich photo ultra high resolution high resolution new england library of congress

1969 - 1980

Library of Congress

http://www.loc.gov/

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