The Union Bridge Company was a bridge fabricator and contractor with works in
Buffalo, New York, (believed closed in 1890 per
HAER references) and
Athens, Pennsylvania. The Union Bridge company was formed in 1884 as a merger of several other bridge-building firms. Partners included George S. Field of Buffalo,
Edmund B. Hayes of Buffalo, Charles MacDonald of New York City, Thomas C. Clarke of Seabright, NY and Charles Stewart Maurice of Athens, PA.[1]
History
Kellogg, Clarke & Co. was formed in 1869 by Thomas C. Clarke and Charles Kellogg, with the backing of Samuel Reeves of the "Phoenix Iron Works" of
Phoenixville, Pennsylvania. In 1871, Kellogg left to form his own company and Clarke and Reeves formed "Clarke, Reeves & Co." In 1884, "Clarke, Reeves & Co." became the "Phoenix Bridge Company." In the same year, Clarke and Charles Macdonald formed the Union Bridge Company by merger of the "Central Bridge Company" of
Buffalo, New York and Kellogg and Maurice of
Athens, Pennsylvania.[2]
In 1900, The Union Bridge Company was purchased by the
American Bridge Company in a consolidation of 24 US bridge building companies.[3]
A company with the same name, chartered in 1873, was involved in a
US Supreme Court case in 1907 involving compliance with a law giving the
Secretary of War the authority to order removal of obstructions to navigation on rivers and waterways. It is not yet clear if this is the same company or not.
Provo River Railroad Bridge (1884) (small through truss bridge, notable for having been disassembled, reused as a shorter bridge, then disassembled and reused as a still shorter bridge)
archive from
RPI illustration of
Poughkeepsie Bridge with notation "Poughkeepsie Bridge - Built by the Union Bridge Company - Charles Macdonald '57 President - Robert Escobar '57 Engineer"
archive from
RPI illustration of
Hawkesbury River Railway Bridge (Australia) with notation "Hawkesbury River Bridge - Designed and constructed by the Union Bridge Company - Charles Macdonald '57 of the Union Bridge Company - Robert Escobar '57, Engineer, of the Union Bridge Company"
NRHP application archive giving ref to Poughkeepsie Bridge and Niagara Cantilever Bridge both being built by UBC