This photograph of Linn Cove Viaduct is my contribution to the seemingly endless portfolio of Viaduct pictures, most taken from this same vantage point. This bridge has been photographed in all four seasons, in day and night, in sun and snow. Ordinarily, I avoid taking the same picture that everyone else takes, but there is something about this structure that draws people to it. I think it is the juxtaposition of the magnificent landscape God created against one of the finest engineering feats man created. I am one who thinks there is everything right in such a contrast, because being made in the image of God means we should take the gifts He gives to dream, endeavor, create, and glorify Him in the process.
Back in 1987, I was blessed with an experience that cannot be repeated. Shortly after construction of the Viaduct, at a time before it was open to traffic, friends and I went to see the new bridge. At the abutments, we discovered one could enter the hollow interior of the Viaduct. (If you look at construction photos for Linn Cover Viaduct on the web, you will see it is constructed from multiple preformed trapezoid-shaped segments.)
We were able to climb inside of the Viaduct. (The National Park Service has since sealed the ends of the bridge making it impossible to enter it now.) It was very dark inside, as one would expect, a concrete cave with a roadway for a ceiling. As we walked the length of the interior, I was most fascinated by what lit our dim way—drain holes, maybe three inches in diameter, two per constructed segment. These holes gave us peepholes to the landscape below. But that was not the best part.
In that dark space, each of those drain holes was a camera obscura, projecting a dim and inverted picture from under the bridge onto the gray, concrete ceiling. All down this tunnel were these circles of light overhead, each a living picture of the landscape below, the landscape that engineers created this transportation masterpiece to protect.
8/28/2017
I managed to climb inside the same passage today. Being skinny helped. It is truly awesome and quite scary. I missed the camera obscura phenomenon so I need to go back! Thanks for your inspiring words about God’s beauty and what he can inspire man to create.
I was in there before the bridge was open to traffic, so I can imagine that would add to the fear factor. Good to hear from you.
I was there to see it for the first in January 2016, and what an amazing site. My dad actually was the construction superintendent for the Linn Cove Viaduct and started in 1979, he worked for Jasper Construction. He and my mom actually rented a place in Linville while he was working on the Viaduct (we called it the bridge back then, not viaduct). I was actually there when construction first began, and some of the structures were actually wooden and the side of the mountain had dynamite in it, I have some Polaroid pics (the ones that shoot out of the camera) of the construction site. We are originally from Morganton, NC. It’s amazing to all the pictures and to think that my dad had a hand in it’s construction!
It’s great you have those pictures. Hang on to them, they sound like they are historic and special! Thank you for sharing about your father’s important role in constructing the bridge.
