Lockland Bridge (Big Four Railroad)

The Lockland Bridge carries the Big Four Railroad over the Miami & Erie Canal and, later, Interstate 75 southbound along with Mill Creek in Lockland, Ohio.

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The Lockland Bridge carries the Big Four Railroad over the Miami & Erie Canal and, later, Interstate 75 southbound along with Mill Creek in Lockland, Ohio.

The three-span plate girder bridge was constructed in 1906 ¹² by the King Bridge Company to carry the Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago & St. Louis Railway (Big Four) across the Miami & Erie Canal and Mill Creek. ⁵ The canal, featuring four locks built between 1826 and 1827, served Lockland until 1929. ¹

Plans for a regional limited-access highway linking Cincinnati and Dayton, following the former canal, began in the 1930s. ⁶

In January 1941, a 3.5-mile freeway was proposed to connect Paddock Road to Glendale-Milford Road, serving the Wright Aeronautical Company plant then under construction in Lockland. ⁷ The roadway was planned as four lanes from Paddock Road to Shepherd Lane and six lanes from there to Glendale-Milford Road, at an estimated cost of $1 million. It would follow the Miami & Erie Canal, with the State Highway Department holding title to the canal bed. Nearly all construction costs were to be funded by the federal government through the Works Progress Administration (WPA). The design included 12-foot lanes, a four-foot median, and red oxide concrete on acceleration lanes. ⁹

Design work on the partly completed road was delayed in late 1941 when the WPA determined that landscaping and relocating sewer and water lines were not essential to defense needs. ⁸ In December, Hamilton County Highway Engineer Houston Coates and Parker Bookwalter, district engineer for the Ohio Highway Department, proposed that the state and county share the cost of those items so that WPA funds could be reserved strictly for road construction.

Work on the original Wright Highway in Lockland was completed for $3.5 million ⁹ in 1942. Its success led to the planning of a northerly extension of the freeway for 1.42 miles to State Route 126. ⁸

Ground was broken for a southern extension on December 4, 1947. ¹⁰ The Lockland Highway—also known as the Wright Highway or Wright-Lockland Highway—opened to Paddock Road in 1950. ^{2 3 10} The extension required raising the plate girder bridge over the old canal and Mill Creek in Lockland, which was reused to cross automobile traffic instead.

A lack of funding initially limited highway connections to the south. The 1948 Cincinnati Metropolitan Master Plan proposed a 10-mile freeway along U.S. Route 25 and the canal corridor, to be built as the Millcreek Expressway. ⁶ Progress was delayed until June 1956, when President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the Federal-Aid Highway Act, establishing a 41,000-mile interstate system that incorporated many existing expressways and freeways already completed or under construction.

By August 1958, plans were underway to expand the Expressway at Lockland to interstate standards. ⁴ The Ohio State Highway Department submitted proposals to the U.S. Bureau of Public Roads to add three northbound lanes, beginning at Hartwell Avenue and following a new alignment east of the existing Lockland Highway through Arlington Heights to Shepherd Lane, where it would reconnect with the original route. The existing Lockland Highway through Lockland would be renovated for southbound traffic only.

The new northbound lanes and the renovated southbound lanes through Lockland opened in 1963, at which point the highway through Lockland was designated Interstate 75. ¹⁰

As part of the Interstate 75 reconstruction project through Cincinnati between the Ohio River and Interstate 275, the Ohio Department of Transportation intends to reconstruct the highway through Lockland and unify the split southbound and northbound lanes. ¹¹ The plan is to provide four lanes in each direction on the existing southbound interstate corridor. It will involve replacing the railroad bridge over southbound Interstate 75 and Mill Creek. The project is set to take place between 2027 and 2035 and cost $241 million.

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Details

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Sources

1. Mixon, Bernie. “Community has big plans for making up for loss of industries.” Cincinnati Enquirer, pp. B1-B3.
2. Bowman, David W. “Mill Creek Expressway? It’s a Story of Bridges.” Cincinnati Enquirer, 11 Oct. 1959, p. 9G.
3. Collins, William. “Tail Wags Dog, So Expressway is Stalled; St. Bernard Makes Strong Case for Itself.” Cincinnati Enquirer, 2 Mar 1952, p. 2-23.
4. “Lockland Highway Slated To Get Three More Lanes.” Cincinnati Enquirer, 13 Aug. 1958, p. B4.
5. Plaque.
6. Suess, Jeff. “Ever wonder how I-75, I-71 got names?” Cincinnati Enquirer, 13 Aug. 2023, pp. 3A-4A.
7. “Super-Highway To Be Built To Aero Plant In Lockland; Funds Allotted For Housing.” Cincinnati Enquirer, 30 Jan. 1941, pp. 1-5.
8. “Early Start.” Cincinnati Enquirer, 11 Jan. 1942, p. 29.
9. “Plans Are Readied For New Highway From Wright Plant.” Cincinnati Enquirer, 10 Feb. 1942, p. 6.
10. Mecklenborg, Jake. “1940’s.” Cincinnati-Transit.net.
11. “I-75 Thru the Valley.” Ohio Department of Transportation.
12. Bridge plaque.