David W. Flickwir
David W. Flickwir (???-1935) was a lawyer and railroad engineering contractor. His company built one of the world's largest concrete bridges, the Tunkhannock Viaduct.[1]
Flickwir moved to Roanoke, Virginia, to work for the Norfolk and Western Railroad; at one point, he held the position of the railroad's superintendent. By 1906, he was wealthy enough to commission a grand house in the Colonial Revival style. The house helped set architectural trends in the city: “The great history books on Roanoke all pay homage to this structure,” said Kent Chrisman of the Roanoke Historical Society. In 2005, Jefferson College of Health Sciences renovated the house for use as its admissions and financial-aid office and renamed it "Fralin House".[1]
By 1908, Flickwir had formed his own company, Flickwir & Bush. He received contracts from the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad to build part of the audacious Lackawanna Cut-off, a spare-no-expense project to connect eastern Pennsylvania and New Jersey with as straight and level a route as possible. Flickwir & Bush built miles 50.2 to 55.8, as measured from the DL&W's Hoboken terminal, a stretch that required the construction of Wharton Fill, Roseville Tunnel, Colby Cut, and the eastern half of the mammoth Pequest Fill.
From 1912 to 1915, Flickwir & Bush built the DL&W's Tunkhannock Viaduct, a concrete deck arch bridge that spans the Tunkhannock Creek in Nicholson, Pennsylvania, in the United States. Measuring 2,375 feet (724 m) long and towering 240 feet (73 m) when measured from the creek bed (300 feet (91 m) from bedrock), it was the largest concrete structure in the world when completed in 1915[2] and still merited "the title of largest concrete bridge in America, if not the world" 50 years later.[3]
Flickwir married the former Mildred Elder, the nursing superintendent at Roanoke Hospital (today known as Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital). Over the 1920s and 1930s, he gave hundreds of thousands of dollars to the hospital, which dubbed him its "Greatest Benefactor". A 1925 building he funded, the Flickwir Memorial Unit, still stands.[1]
Flikwir died in 1935.[1]
Gallery
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Tunkhannock Viaduct under construction in 1914
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Tunkhannock viaduct, 1928)
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Tunkhannock Viaduct from a commercial airline flight from Ottawa to Philadelphia
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Tunkhannock Viaduct, as seen from Route 11
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Viaduct over Nicholson, PA
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Hailey, Diane (2005). "Fralin House Rededicated to Honor Memory of Horace Fralin". Jefferson Chronicle (2): 14.
- ↑ "Twelve Million Dollars for Twenty Minutes Train Time". Popular Science Monthly 88. New York : D. Appleton. 1916. p. 7. Retrieved August 7, 2014.
- ↑ Jackson, Donald C.; Yearby, Jean P. (1968). "Erie-Lackawanna Railroad, Tunkhannock Viaduct, Nicholson, Wyoming County, PA". Historic American Engineering Record. Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress. p. 1. Retrieved November 29, 2014.