RailroadsVerified to source

B&O builds a Fink truss bridge across the Cheat River at Rowlesburg

The Baltimore & Ohio Railroad built a Fink truss bridge across the Cheat River at Rowlesburg in 1851, according to the Historic American Engineering Record. HAER identifies it as the first of three successive bridges at this crossing. The Smithsonian’s B&O Railroad Records preserve an undated view specifically identified as the Fink bridge, along with another undated view of the Cheat River bridge near Rowlesburg. Together, the engineering record and archival images document the earliest bridge generation in this crossing’s history.

Rowlesburg Cheat River Preston County

Research status

This entry has been checked against its named source.

The timeline wording accurately reflects the source listed below. This status does not necessarily mean the event has been independently corroborated against additional records.

How verification works

Sources and further reading

Where this entry comes from

Historic American Engineering Record, HAER WV-13, B&O Railroad, Rowlesburg Bridge, written historical and descriptive data (transmitted 1984); Smithsonian Institution, Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Records, NMAH.AC.1086

Read the HAER bridge history Smithsonian — Fink bridge view, Box 19, Item 716 (undated) Smithsonian — Cheat River bridge view, Box 19, Item 714 (undated) Smithsonian B&O collection finding aid — Items 714 and 716, printed page 151 West Virginia Archives and History — official reports of the Jones–Imboden Raid Library of Congress — HAER WV-13 catalog and photographs

Research notes

What the evidence establishes

1851 is the bridge construction date reported by HAER, not the date of the Smithsonian photographs. Box 19, Items 714 and 716 are cataloged as undated. Item 716 explicitly identifies a Fink bridge; Item 714 uses the broader description of a Cheat River bridge near Rowlesburg.

HAER’s sequence places the Fink generation before the Bollman bridge of 1870. Identifying the bridge targeted during the 1863 Jones–Imboden Raid as the Fink generation is an inference from that chronology and the wartime reports.

From the Smithsonian collections

Archival views of the Cheat River crossing

Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Records · Undated photographs

These views are undated; 1851 is the bridge construction date, not the date of either photograph. Smithsonian identifies Item 716 as the Fink bridge. Item 714 is cataloged more broadly as a Cheat River bridge near Rowlesburg and does not identify its truss type.