Phoenix Bridge Company

The Phoenix Bridge Company was incorporated in Pennsylvania on April 2, 1884. For much of its life it ranked among the top five American builders of iron and steel bridges.

The enterprise had been founded in 1864 as a spin-off of the Phoenix Iron Company of Phoenixville, Pa., a pioneer in the manufacture of structural iron. The firm was originally known as Kellogg, Clarke & Company, with Thomas Curtis Clarke, a noted bridge builder, as junior partner. The German-born Adolphus Bonzano joined the firm as chief engineer in 1868. The firm was reorganized in 1871 as Clarke, Reeves & Company, when David Reeves and John Griffen of the Phoenix Iron Company were admitted as partners. In 1873 Clarke, Reeves & Company contracted to perform all bridge work for Phoenix. The famous prefabricated Phoenix Columns were used as compression members in most of the early Phoenix bridges, such as the 1874 Girard Ave. Bridge in Philadelphia and the Second Avenue Elevated in New York.

The Phoenix Bridge Company was incorporated in 1884 with David Reeves as president, William Handy Reeves as general manager and Bonzano as chief engineer. Steel was first used in 1889. The company specialized in railroad bridges, both long-span truss bridges and moveable bridges of the swing, bascule and vertical lift type. The company also produced and erected structural iron and steel work for the Reading Terminal train shed, the Atlantic City boardwalk and several office buildings in Philadelphia. In the early 20th century, Phoenix built a number of very large bridges. The most notorious was the Quebec Bridge over the St. Lawrence (1900-1907). Before it could be completed, the entire south arm of the bridge collapsed on August 29, 1907, killing 75.

Other major contracts of this period were the Charles River Bridge at Cambridge (1904), the Manhattan Bridge (1909-1910), the Liberty Ave. Elevated in Brooklyn (1914) and the Baldwin Locomotive Works at Eddystone, Pa. Important projects from the interwar years included the Arlington Memorial Bridge, parts of the Pulaski Skyway and the Cape Cod Canal Bridge at Buzzards Bay, Mass., then the longest vertical lift span in the world.

The company declined during and after World War II, and the death of Samuel J. Reeves, Jr., in 1944 brought the end of Reeves family control. The works closed in June 1949. Two months later, they were acquired by the Barium Steel Corporation, and the Phoenix Bridge Company became a Barium subsidiary. The company struggled along building bridges and overpasses for the Interstate Highway network, including the Baltimore Beltway, the Connecticut Turnpike and the New York Thruway. The company's last contract, 38 trusses for the Liberty Bell Park racetrack, was completed in 1962.

From the description of Records, 1874-1963. (Hagley Museum & Library). WorldCat record id: 122458194