The Day the Honeymoon Bridge Collapsed

THE DAY THE HONEYMOON BRIDGECOLLA PS

By Andrew Hind

Photos from the private collection of Sherman Zavitz

The massive Honeymoon Bridge threatened to collapse into the Niagara Gorge below. Metal girders supporting the span were heaving and would soon break apart, like river ice at the spring thaw.

Moments before, creeping onto the crippled structure had seemed like a harmless adventure for Douglas and Wesley Styles, aged 12 and 13. But as the bridge swayed underfoot and the metal groaned threatening, the two looked at one another aghast, eyes wide in terror. What had begun as mischievous fun now seemed like a terrible, and perhaps fatal, mistake

The metal beneath them shivered and writhed again. Douglas and Wesley ran for the safety of shore. They reached the shore just as the metal bowed and buckled and then, with a thundering groan, the Honeymoon Bridge collapsed into the river below.

Douglas and Wesley collapsed. They were silent, the nearness of their death bearing down on them like a crushing weight. When Douglas finally broke the awful silence, only one thing

emerged from his quivering lips: “I hope Mom doesn’t find out about this.”

Mom did find out. Indeed, all of North America found out. The collapse of the Honeymoon Bridge on January 27, 1938, captured the attention of millions on both sides of the border and newspapermen, anxious for additional drama to sell the story, focused on the experiences of the Styles boys as a thrilling sidebar to what was already a thoroughly captivating story.

The Honeymoon Bridge, so-called because so many newlyweds crossed from the United States on their way to romantic honeymoons in Niagara Falls, Ontario had been built forty years earlier, in 1898. It represented an engineering marvel for its day. For exactly four decades the Honeymoon Bridge dominated the profile of the Niagara River gorge looking downstream from the falls. Then, in late January, 1938, this proud pinnacle of engineering was suddenly brought crashing down by the forces of nature.

Starting on January 25, an enormous ice jam began to develop in the Niagara River gorge immediately below the Falls. The volume of ice was exceptional, but not immediately worrying—most winters would see ice from Lake Erie gather below the Falls. But by the early hours of the 26th, people started to grow alarmed as the ice began to pile up around the pillars of the Honeymoon Bridge in quantities never seen before, putting immense strain on the steel supports. Maintenance crews had been hurriedly summoned to the scene in a desperate attempt to save the structure. They climbed down into the gorge and frantically began to clear ice away from the supports, but within a few hours it became apparent that they were fighting a losing battle; the ice was simply accumulating faster than they could remove it.

Meanwhile, engineers inspecting the structure made a startling discovery: several of the support girders were already beginning to buckle under the immense stain. At 9:15 am, the decision was made to close the bridge and suspend ice-clearing efforts. The Honeymoon Bridge was left to her fate.

By the next morning, the ice jam reached a height of 150 feet (45m), creating a virtual dam. Popping rivets could be heard as the bridge groaned under the strain, and everyone on shore knew that it was just a matter of time before the doomed bridge gave up the struggle and collapsed. As word of her imminent demise spread, thousands of curious spectators were drawn to the scene, braving the cold to watch the death of a landmark. Police had set up a barrier on both sides of the bridge, preventing people from getting too close. But security wasn’t tight enough to stop two adventurous boys from slipping past and onto the bridge.

When asked later why they did it, Douglas and Wesley Styles answered that they had simply wanted to get a better point of view from which to take pictures of the spectacular ice formations in the gorge below. The best spot, they decided, was from the bridge itself. The structure still seemed safe enough. What was the harm?

So they snuck past the guards and brazenly ventured out onto the dying structure. Then rivets popped like gunshots, metal groaned, and the ground shifted underfoot. The bridge trembled as the ice literally pushed it off its footings on the American side. They had just reached shore when the bridge behind them, starting from the centre, began to collapse. From the time the bridge was pushed off its footings to the moment of its collapse took no more than ten seconds. The time was 4:20.

Hearts pounding, oblivious to the mayhem of excited onlookers around them, the boys peered over the edge of the gorge. The bridge lay in a crumpled heap in the frozen river, awkwardly twisted, broken in four main sections. What just days before was an engineering marvel was now little more than a mass of twisted steel and wood.

Newspapers across Canada and the United States flashed the story of the bridge’s demise on front pages. One of the papers with a correspondent on hand was the Niagara Falls Review. It recorded the death of the bridge in dramatic fashion: “With startling suddenness, and what sounded like a weary groan, the mighty structure sagged and fell into the gorge. There was not a great deal of noise as the 2600 tons of steel and 300 tons of wood, which comprised the framework and floor of the bridge, sank to rest, and onlookers scarcely believed their eyes as they saw the destruction of the once proud span which now lies in the shape of a great twisted W on the ice bridge.”

The following Sunday, Niagara Falls experienced one of the busiest days in its history up to that point as thousands came from as far away as New York City to view the remains of the bridge lying shattered and broken below. Some simply couldn’t believe this landmark was gone.

Engineers were worried that the mass would cause an obstruction in the river, and it was deemed prudent to break it up into smaller pieces. Rather than the painstaking process of cutting it up, dynamite was used to break the wreckage into six pieces. The plan was practical, but not well thought through; the concussion from the blast shattered windows throughout Niagara Falls, causing around $10,000 worth of damage.

The remains of the Honeymoon Bridge lay on the ice until the April thaw. On the 12th, the ice bridge began to break up and the debris slipped from sight under the water where it had fallen.

Planning began almost immediately after for a new bridge to link Niagara Falls, Ontario, with Niagara Falls, New York, though it was

decided to move it five hundred feet further downriver. On June 7, 1939, King George VI and Queen Elizabeth, the parents of the current ruling monarch, Elizabeth II, cut the ribbon on this site during a brief ceremony. Ground was officially broken for the construction of what became the Rainbow Bridge on May 4, 1940.

Thousands of tourists, honeymooners among them, continue to come to Niagara Falls via this new bridge every year. Most are blissfully unaware of the drama that accompanied the previous bridge’s final dying moments. The collapse of the Honeymoon Bridge remains one of the most spectacular demonstrations of the destructive power of the Falls, reminding us of the fragility of even the best human engineering in the face of nature’s fury.