White Rock Bridge

The White Rock Bridge carries a footpath over the Pawcatuck River and the White Rock Canal, on the line between Stonington, Connecticut, and Westerly, Rhode Island. The canal was a rubble-walled tailrace constructed in the nineteenth century to return water to the river from a textile mill upstream on the Rhode Island side.

The bridge was constructed in connection with the Norwich & Westerly Railway Company’s efforts to establish its right-of-way through Westerly. The railway needed a portion of town-owned land, and, by most accounts, the town made construction of a highway bridge part of the agreement. The crossing served local traffic, but it also had a commercial purpose. Westerly’s merchants were competing for business with Pawcatuck, the village directly across the river in Connecticut. A bridge landing in Westerly helped draw shoppers past Pawcatuck and into the town’s commercial district.

Norwich & Westerly Railway

The railway was promoted by businessmen in both cities, principally H. H. Gallup, a Norwich manufacturer, and Charles D. Noyes, treasurer of the Norwich Bulletin. ¹ Noyes’s involvement was notable because the newspaper openly viewed trolley lines as a means of drawing rural trade into Norwich’s commercial orbit. One of its advertising campaigns used the slogan, “The Bulletin Follows the Trolley.”

Construction was undertaken by the National Construction Company of New York City, a firm about which little survives beyond the names of its president, E. W. McKernan, and its chief engineer, E. W. Jackson. ¹ National Construction handled the project from beginning to end, including surveying, right-of-way acquisition, and subcontracting for the roadbed, power plant, car barn, and substations. The company also purchased the rolling stock and guided the Connecticut Railroad Commission’s engineer through the final inspection. The bridge was almost certainly designed by National Construction as well. The total cost of the railway was $1,309,695.

What the company constructed was considerably more substantial than a typical trolley line. ¹ Except for short stretches of street running at either end, the Norwich & Westerly operated on a dedicated right-of-way. The roadbed was embanked and ballasted to standards that exceeded those then customary for electric railways, while curves were superelevated to accommodate higher speeds. The route required extensive cuts and fills, much of the earthwork being performed by Italian immigrant labor. The substantial construction of the railway side of the White Rock Bridge reflected the same engineering standards applied elsewhere along the line.

The railway operated eight double-truck cars manufactured by the Southern Car Company. ¹ The cars featured monitor roofs, high-backed seats, end doors, and multiple-unit controls that allowed them to operate in sets. A single freight motor handled a milk run through the farm country that comprised much of the route. Passenger cars stopped at Norwich State Hospital, Hallville, and North Stonington, while some express runs covered the 22-mile route in an hour. The line reached speeds of 48 miles per hour, and its engineers claimed that it maintained the fastest schedule of any electric railway in New England. A round trip cost sixty cents.

Opening and Financial Difficulties

The Norwich and Westerly opened on August 20, 1906, to what newspapers described as a “wild rush” of people. ¹ Ridership was substantial. The railway carried 500,652 fares during its first full year of operation and 1,415,813 by 1911, after the line had been extended beyond Westerly to the beaches.

The railway’s financial performance was considerably less successful. ¹ More than 70% of its $67,307.60 in revenue in 1908 went toward servicing construction debt. The company lost money in six of its first nine years, and it entered receivership in 1909, only three years after opening. A cash infusion in 1912 produced marginal profitability for approximately two years, but losses then resumed. The renamed Norwich & Westerly Traction Company failed again, and its assets were acquired by the Shore Line Electric Railway in 1916. The Shore Line Electric Railway itself entered receivership by 1919.

The last cars between Norwich and Westerly operated on December 31, 1922. ¹

Later History

Westerly subsequently took possession of the bridge and kept it in highway service for another half-century. ¹ A separate structure carried automobiles between Bridge Road and White Rock Road, sharing a common center truss with the railway side. The automobile crossing remained in service until 1976.

The automobile side of the crossing was demolished and rebuilt in 1994. ¹

Very little of the Norwich & Westerly survives. ¹ The White Rock Bridge is one of the few substantial physical remnants of the system, preserving the route of a railway that had connected Norwich and Westerly while also reflecting the commercial and engineering ambitions that shaped its construction.