Erie-Lackawanna Railroad, Tunkhannock Viaduct, Nicholson, Wyoming County, PA

Significance: When the Lackawanna Railroad's 39.6-mile Clarks Summit-Halstead Cutoff in northeastern Pennsylvania was dedicated on Saturday, November 6, 1915, the 2,375-foot-long, 240-foot-high Tunkhannock Viaduct stood at its west end. The total excavation for the cutoff had amounted to 13,318,000 cubic yards, more than half of that rock; into its substructures had gone 800,000 cubic yards of concrete. The Tunkhannock alone had required 1140 tons of steel, and 167,000 cubic yards of concrete containing 89,000 barrels or 1,093 carloads of cement. More than 50 years after its building, the Tunkhannock Viaduct still merits the title of largest concrete bridge in America, if not the world. It has been compared to the nearly two-thousand-year old Pont du Gard in southern France; mainly because of its tall proportions and high semicircular main arches. Its moldings serve to break the vertical lines. The veneer that was applied to exposed surfaces at the top of Tunkhannock in the 1940s has started to peel away.
Survey number: HAER PA-87
Building/structure dates: 1915 Initial Construction
National Register of Historic Places NRIS Number: 77001203