St. Gotthard Pass

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Saint Gotthard's Hospice and Museum.

The modern concrete span of the Devil's bridge (Teufelsbrücke) across the Schöllenen Gorge replaces the older bridge below.

St. Gotthard Pass (Italian: San Gottardo) is a pass (2,108 m) in Switzerland at 46°33.3′N 8°33.9′E, between Airolo, Ticino, and Andermatt, Canton of Uri, connecting the northern (German speaking) part of Switzerland with the Italian-speaking part Ticino, and the route onwards to Milan. Though the pass was locally known in Antiquity, it was not generally used until the early 13th century, because it involved fording the turbulent Schöllen, swollen with snowmelt during the early summer, in the narrow steep-sided Schöllenen Gorge, below Andermatt. Seasonal deaths resulting from drowning reached a peak in April-May of most years, according to the oral histories of the nearby villages.

The bridge that was built under such challenging conditions was one of so many Devil's Bridges that the legends about them form a category in the Aarne-Thompson classification system for folktales (number 1191)^[1]. The Reuss was so difficult to ford, that a Swiss herdsman, it was told, wished the devil would make a bridge. The Devil appeared, but required that the first to cross be given to him. The mountaineer agreed, but drove a goat across ahead of him, fooling his adversary ^[2]. Angered by this sham the devil fetched a rock using which he wanted to smash the bridge, but an old woman drew a cross on the rock such that the devil couldn't lift it anymore. The rock is still there, and in 1977 300,000 Swiss francs were expended to move the 220 ton rock by 127 metres in order to make room for the new Gotthard road tunnel. It should be noted that this is a legend and not considered an event that actually occurred.

Construction of the Devil's Bridge, Carl Blechen, c. 1833 (Neue Pinakothek, Munich.

The bridge permitted traffic to follow the Reuss to its headwaters and over the saddle at the top—a continental divide between the Rhine and the North Sea and the Po and the Mediterranean — then down the Ticino towards Milan. It carried only foot traffic and pack animals until 1775, when the first carriage made the journey on an improved road.

The pass itself was dedicated as early as 1236 to the Bavarian Saint Gotthard of Hildesheim.

View of St. Gotthard by J.M.W. Turner.

The 15km St. Gotthard Tunnel opened in 1882 for railway traffic at a cost of 177 workers' lives and replaced the pass road ^[3]. A 17 km highway tunnel opened in 1980, with far fewer resulting deaths (53). A second rail tunnel through the pass, the Gotthard Base Tunnel, is currently under construction. Swiss authorities aim to have fewer than 10 construction-related deaths (the current tally stands at 7). When completed it will be the longest rail tunnel in the world at 57 km. This tunnel, combined with two shorter tunnels planned near Zürich and Lugano as part of the AlpTransit initiative will reduce the 3hour 40min rail journey from Zürich to Milan by one hour, while increasing the size and number of trains that can operate along the route.