Development of the Lenticular Truss Bridge in America

Abstract

Lenticular-shaped iron truss bridges, built exclusively by the Berlin Bridge Company of East Berlin, Conn., dominated the New England and adjacent area’s modest span bridge market for over a decade at the end of the nineteenth century. This paper examines this phenomenon in the larger context of earlier European development of the lenticular form and, with the assistance of numerous patent drawings and photographs of American lenticular bridges that were either proposed or built prior to the 1883 formation of the Berlin Bridge Company.