Man versus Wild: the Starrucca Viaduct

text from the Catskill Archive, originally from—"Between the Ocean and the Lakes--The Story of the ERIE"—by Edward Harold Mott--1899:

"The Starrucca Viaduct was at the time it was built the greatest work of railroad bridge masonry in the United States, and is to-day a conspicuous example of that branch of engineering science, even among the stupendous feats of modern bridge construction. The viaduct is 1,200 feet long, 110 feet high, and has eighteen arches with spans of fifty feet each. It was wisely constructed for a double track, and was made thirty feet wide on top. The cost of the structure was $320,000, the most expensive railroad bridge in the world at that time."

Illustration circa 1848.