High Bridge

High Bridge, 1877

I didn't know it when I took this picture, but this High Bridge is apparently a fairly famous historic engineering landmark. And I just thought it was a cool bridge. On the particular weekend this photo was taken, my little family, along with my husband's cousin and his wife, had decided to visit Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill. We settled on a hike, but ended up on the road down to the Dixie Bell and the Kentucky River. We noticed this bridge about half-way down to the river, so I had to stop and snap some pictures of it once we got to the bottom.

As I did a little research on this bridge, I discovered that this High Bridge was the tallest trestle bridge in the world when it was finished in 1877. When it opened, it was the very first cantilever bridge in North America! It is 280 feet above the Kentucky River, and is still in use today.

On either side of the bridge are large, beautiful limestone cliffs and palisades. You can see them in the upper left side of the picture, near that end of the bridge. These types of cliffs line the Kentucky River at many parts. These beautiful cliffs have been quite a surprise for me. I never saw Kentucky as a state with this much beauty, but I'm quickly seeing that my assumptions were wrong.