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Aerial view of East Basin and Cerritos Channel.
Note bridge in upper center location
Joseph Baermann Strauss designed the Henry Ford Bridge and is credited with the design of a substantial number of bridges throughout California, the nation, and the world. The Los Angeles Board of Harbor Commissioners contracted for the construction of the bridge in 1922.
By the end of 1924, the American Bridge Company in Pennsylvania had fabricated all metal components of the bridge and the Los Angeles firm of Ross Construction Company had assembled the structure at the site. When the structure was finished at a cost of $980,000, news reports hailed it as the largest and heaviest of its kind ever built. Similar bridges of the type existed at the time and featured a longer span (or distance between bridge piers), but none featured the same width (and thus carrying capacity) or total structural length
View of interior of machinery room
The Henry Ford Bridge is an example of a Strauss, heel trunnion, double-leaf railroad bascule bridge. A unique aspect of the bascule bridge is that, as designed, it could carry rail, highway, and pedestrian traffic simultaneously. The double-leaf steel truss bascule spanned 760 feet across Cerritos Channel with two 50-foot bascule tower sections at each end. In addition, the bridge's two leaves were each approximately 110 feet in length. Crossing vehicles met the steel portion of the bridge from both the north and the south via timber trestle approaches. The width of the overall bridge was 70 feet or enough for two single-track railroad alignments and two single-lane roads. (View more historic photos of the bridge.)
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