Be eye engee oh! you found me, unc...your turn again
When I was a wee boy, my friends and I used to take the 66 bus (a trackless trolley, electric power, green ahead of its time!) and get off on this bridge to fish in the Pennypack Creek which runs under it, or keep going north to Linden Ave. and then walk down to the ponds of the old fish hatchery there along the Delaware River.
I just drove over it very recently when my younger son and I were cruising around since he wanted to see other parts of Philadelphia..we stopped at the Rita's Water Ice place down the street from here and I had Passion Fruit water ice...my favorite.
The Frankford Avenue Bridge, also known as the Pennypack Creek Bridge, the Holmesburg Bridge, and the King's Highway Bridge,
erected in 1697 or 1698 in the Holmesburg section of Northeast Philadelphia, Pennsylvania,
is the oldest surviving roadway bridge in the United States. The three-span, 73-foot-long (22 m) twin stone arch bridge carries Frankford Avenue (U.S. Route 13), just north of Solly Avenue, over Pennypack Creek in Pennypack Park.
The bridge, built at the decree of William Penn, was an important link on the King's Highway that linked Philadelphia with cities to the north (Trenton, New York, and Boston). Male residents of the area were obligated to pledge labor or money toward its construction. Over it crossed anyone who traveled by horseback or coach from the northern colonies to the First or Second Continental Congresses, such as John Adams, from Massachusetts. In 1803, it was paved, and a toll booth was added at its south end. The bridge was widened in 1893 to accommodate streetcars, and again in 1950 to better accommodate automobile traffic. It remains in use today.
The bridge was designated a National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark by the American Society of Civil Engineers in 1970. It was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1988.