LUNCH WITH BOOKS: Stone Arch Railroad Bridges of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad

August 03, 2021
12:00pm - 1:00pm

Daniel Frizzi, a trustee for the Great Stone Viaduct Society in Bellaire, recently helped put together a festival to celebrate the 150th Anniversary of the city's Great Stone Viaduct. At Lunch With Books, Frizzi will reprise the presentation he created for the festival, "Baltimore & Ohio Stone Arch Bridges," which will explore the history of Bellaire's bridge and several others, including the Hempfield Railroad viaduct at Tunnel Green in Wheeling, which was designed by Suspension Bridge engineer Charles Ellet Jr. in 1857. Frizzi will talk about the beauty, symmetry, and strength of the arch as used in engineering and tell us about the stone bridges along the former B&O route that make use of architectural elements including those at Carrollton, Mt. Airy, Thomas, Bloomington, and Tray Run,  MD, Indian Creek, PA, Wheeling, WV's Hempfield viaduct, and the Great Stone Viaduct in Bellaire, OH. The first train traveled over a new stone arch bridge connecting Bellaire, OH and Benwood, WV on On June 21, 1871. You can find out more on the Great Stone Viaduct Historical Education Society's Facebook Page.

In addition to being in-person in the Library auditorium, this program will be available to watch live on Facebook Live, on YouTube, and on the OCPL website's LWB Livestream page.  Log into your Facebook or YouTube account during the program to leave questions for our presenters in the comments box. They will answer them during the live broadcast. 

PRESENTER BIO: Daniel L. Frizzi, Jr., a practicing attorney, the President of the Bellaire Public Library Board of Trustees, and a member of  Board of Trustees of the Great StoneViaduct Historical Education Society. He is the author of  An American Railroad Portrait: People, Places, and Pultney: a History of the Development of Railroads in Pultney Township of Belmont County, Ohio, and in Particular the City of Bellaire (1993) and Honoring Our Father: A Bicentennial Salute to Colonel John Hamm Sullivan (2003). His latest book, Just A Grocer’s Son (2020) is a gripping and potent history that holds the life story of an Italian American family who pushes through the struggles and complications of life throughout generations, recording the sad disappearance of the small neighborhood grocer throughout American communities.

FEATURED BOOK: The Great Road: The Building of the Baltimore and Ohio, the Nation's First Railroad, 1828-1853 by James D. Dilts, Stanford University Press, 1993. [Reserve a copy from the Library | Purchase through Stanford University Press ]

This masterful, richly illustrated account of the planning and building of the most important and influential early American railroad, the Baltimore and Ohio, is an essential contribution not only to railway history but also to the broader history of the development of the United States in the first half of the nineteenth century.

There was no precedent for the building of the B&O. The construction of the 380-mile line from Baltimore to the Ohio River over a period of 25 years is an epic story of astute planning and innovative engineering that overcame many formidable obstacles, notably the arduous traversing of 200 miles of mountain wilderness. Its successful inauguration provided a spur to internal improvements throughout the United States. Railroads, and certainly the B&O, epitomized progress, not only in the development and extension of the Western frontier but in the revelation that personal travel and the delivery of freight could be dramatically faster, better, and cheaper.

The book is illustrated with 80 photographs and drawings and 5 maps.

- View all books about the B&O Railroad at the Library
- View photos of the B&O in Wheeling from the Library's archives
- View all ebooks about the B&O Railroad available online with your OCPL library card through Hoopla

Lunch With Books Livestream starts at noon on Facebook and YouTube.

Subscribe to the Lunch With Books Youtube channel or like us on the Lunch With Books Facebook page or to receive notifications of our upcoming LWB broadcasts. To receive emails about our upcoming programs, visit our News page, click the "Subscribe" button to sign-up for our news blasts or download our free OCPL Connect app from your smartphone's app store. 

"Lunch With Books" is the library’s flagship program for adult patrons. These lunchtime programs feature authors, poets, musicians, historians, and more every Tuesday at noon. Bring lunch (to your computer), feed your brain!