Building the East Huntington Bridge

​By Jody Brumage

The Huntington Herald-Dispatch published an editorial on October 11, 1977 on the tenth anniversary of the collapse of the Silver Bridge in Point Pleasant, West Virginia. However, the editorial was more than a remembrance of the 46 people who died in the accident. The paper lamented the deteriorated state of Huntington’s Sixth Street Bridge and penned the concerns of many area residents who feared a similar tragedy in their own community.
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Harold E. Burdick, publisher of the Herald-Dispatch sent a copy of the editorial to Senator Robert C. Byrd who replied on October 14, 1977, relaying that he had directed his staff to check with the State Department of Highways who had confirmed that though the bridge was under weight restrictions, it was considered safe and not in imminent risk of failure.

​Huntington residents did not have such confidence in the durability of the bridge. Poor drainage from the bridge deck hastened the deterioration of the structure, leaving gaps and cracks which people drove and walked over daily crossing the Ohio River. The bridge had also been operating under weight restrictions since 1969 when signs were posted prohibiting vehicles carrying more than 12 tons. This prohibition meant that trucks carrying coal could not use the span, limiting that traffic to a bridge on the southern side of the city.

The editorial from the Herald-Dispatch which sparked conversations with Senator Byrd's office to obtain the resources to build a new bridge in Huntington.

Constituent letters soon began flooding the senator’s office and on December 14, 1977, a petition bearing almost 2,000 signatures collected by the Huntington Area Women’s Interclub Council arrived on Senator Byrd’s desk. In replies to the letters from concerned residents, Senator Byrd assured that the he was working with the governor, the state Department of Highways, and the Federal Highway Administration to identify funding sources to replace the Sixth Street Bridge.

Senator Byrd reads letters and petitions from constituents at his desk in his Washington DC office.

On Capitol Hill, Senator Byrd, Senator Jennings Randolph, and Congressman Nick Joe Rahall began examining existing federal highway funding to find resources for the project. Senator Randolph introduced an amendment in May to the Federal Highway Act of 1978 to provide funding from a discretionary budget to support the project. On June 16, 1978, Senator Byrd received a letter from Senator Birch Bayh (D-IN), chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Transportation and Related Industries that the discretionary funds were authorized as part of the Fiscal Year 1979 budget, opening the door to secure federal dollars for a new bridge in Huntington.

Senator Byrd wrote a letter to Karl Bowers, Administrator of the Federal Highway Administration on January 16, 1979, urging him to allocate funds for the Huntington project. Within a month, he received a reply from the administration announcing that $27 million dollars was set aside for the construction of a new bridge. Over the next four years, studies were conducted and a site on the northeastern side of Huntington was selected for the new span. A design from Arvid Grant and Associates was approved and work commenced in 1983 on the new cable-stayed bridge, the first of its kind in West Virginia (and one of two which span the Ohio River in the state today). The 1,508 foot span, supported by 31 pairs of cables suspended from a 280 foot tower was completed in 1985. A year later, the bridge was honored with the Federal Highway Administration’s Award for Design Excellence. Even after the new span was opened, the Sixth Street Bridge remained in service. Finally, in 1994, another new span, carrying four-lanes of traffic across the Ohio River opened, named in honor of Senator Byrd who spearheaded the securing of appropriations to fund the project. The old Sixth Street Bridge was demolished in 1995.

The East Huntington Bridge (now formally called the Frank Gatski Memorial Bridge) spanning the Ohio River between West Virginia and Ohio. (Photograph from the Library of Congress)