Watch Out for Tornados

The picture is of a steam engine operated by the Knox & Kane Railroad

crossing the Kinzua Bridge near Mt. Jewell Pennsylvania. The bridge spans the Kinzua Creek Valley, thus its name. The Kinzua Viaduct, when first constructed in May 1882, was the highest and longest viaduct in the world, measuring 301 feet high and 2,053 feet long. The need to transport coal, oil and lumber across the Kinzua Gorge inspired General Thomas Kane, president of the New York, Lake Erie and Western Coal Company and Octave Chanute, Chief Engineer for the Erie Railroad to design a colossal viaduct. It was built by the Elmira Bridge Co. of Elmira, New York. The longest span is only 60 feet, but the entire bridge is 2,053 feet long In 1900, the viaduct was rebuilt of steel to accommodate larger loads and the weight of "modern" train traffic. The style of bridge is a Deck Plate Girder Bridge, which passes the train over Kinzua Creek [today on the former Erie Railway at Kinzua Bridge State Park] in McKean County, Pennsylvania. You can driver there today and walk on the partially re-constructed bridge that was mostly destroyed by a tornado on July 21, 2003. The spans that were left were rehabilitated and reopened in 2011 as the "Kinzua Sky Walk. If you choose to drive there these GPS coordinates can help you to arrive: Approximate latitude, longitude +41.76345, -78.58928 (decimal degrees) 41°45'48" N, 78°35'21" W (degrees)

The post card was printed before the tornado took down the bridge. This is a modern era post card printed by the Modern-Ad Company. It contains a bar-code and a space below for the U. S. Postal Service to print their mark on the bottom. The photo on the front of the post card was taken by Bron Miller.