The Tower Bridge

This draw bridge was built in 1935. I'll not go into its history here as a thorough account of its creation along with old black and whites can be found here. I knew that this was a functional draw bridge, but I had no idea how often it actually got used as such. Although I have lived in the Sacramento area now for about four years and I've driven over it a few times, this is the first time I have actually "visited" the bridge. As luck would have it, the Spirit of Sacramento was chugging upstream while I was shooting. This shot (above) is looking from Sacramento across the river to West Sacramento.



In this shot (above), the center section of the bridge has been raised up high so that the riverboat could pass underneath. Large commercial shipping vessels don't travel this part of the river due the completion of the deep water shipping channel in 1963 and because the location of the Port of Sacramento is downstream from here, on the shipping channel. However, horns, bells and alarms sound occasionally to alert pedestrians and motorists that a larger vessels is approaching and the bridge will be momentarily unavailable.



After allowing the Spirit of Sacramento to pass safely, the bridge re-assembles itself so that cars, bicycles and pedestrians can do the same. The next shot shows the barricades sliding back into the roadbed waiting their next call to action. There is a sign mid-span, above the sidewalk that states:

WARNING
GET BEYOND GATE
WHEN BELL RINGS

Next time, I think I'm going to ride it up!