World War Memorial Bridge - Portsmouth, NH, USA - Vertical Lift Bridges on Waymarking.com

Memorial Bridge is an old iron lift and truss bridge that carries U.S. Route 1 across most of the Piscataqua River between Portsmouth, New Hampshire and Badger Island of Kittery, Maine. It is an easy walk from downtown Portsmouth and is the only one of the three bridges that has a pedestrian walkway on both sides of the bridge. Great views can be obtained from the bridge, whether you look upstream to another lift bridge and the I-95 bridge, or downstream to the Portsmouth-Kittery Naval Shipyard.

According to Wikipedia, the bridge was built between 1920 and 1923 as a joint venture between the states of New Hampshire, Maine, and the United States. It was dedicated as a World War memorial (at that time there was only one - the "War to End All Wars").

The bridge length is 1,200 ft long. The lift span raises the middle part of the bridge to 170 ft above the water surface. It is claimed that this is the oldest truss lift bridge in New England.

An article from Boston.com was found concerning this bridge. The bids to restore the bridge came much higher than expected, and now there is debate on both sides of the river whether to preserve or 'retire' the bridge. The article link is here:

(visit link)

Honestly, we hadn't expected to walk across the bridge on Valentine's Day, but we decided to walk across it just to say that we walked over to Maine. We made it, though we paid for it - it was FREEZING cold on that bridge as we were exposed to the 20+ mph winds blowing down the river, and we were chilled for a time afterwards (it was worth it, though!). We didn't see any boat traffic on the river at that time, so we didn't see the bridge in action. Hopefully, a future visitor will and post a picture!

Visit Instructions:
1) After you've found a vertical lift bridge, go visit it, get the coordinates, a picture or two of it, and if it is in use or not still as a lift bridge.
Then log it and post your pictures! At least one of the photos must be of you and your GPS there with the bridge in the background. (No old vacation shots or photos off the internet!)
2) Include the coordinates, city/county/state/country and the name of the bridge (if it has one).
3) Include any interesting information about the structure

Recent Visits/Logs:

Date Logged Log   07/02/2016 searchitnow visited it 06/18/2013 Castor007 visited it 05/10/2013 Chasing Blue Sky visited it 03/07/2010 king.hubi visited it

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