Berlin Iron Bridges in Connecticut
History of the Berlin Iron Bridge Company
Connecticut's leading manufacturer of bridges began as an offshoot of the tinware industry, which since the late 18th century had been centered around the town of Berlin. The firm of Roys and Wilcox, an East Berlin maker of tinners' tools and other metal-forming mechanisms, set up a separate company in 1868 to market 
sheet-iron products made with its rolling machines. The Corrugated Metal Company, as it became known, produced roofing material and metal-clad firedoors and shutters. The company soon became involved in
structural ironwork when it began to provide roof trusses as well as the exterior material. The enterprise was not particularly successful until a new investor in 1877, S. C. Wilcox, realized that the plant had the capacity to manufacture highway bridges. The following year, the Corrugated Metal Company purchased rights to William Douglas's patented "parabolic" truss and produced the first of the lenticular bridges that would soon dot the landscape of the Northeast. Douglas, educated at West Point, joined the company as treasurer and executive manager and continued to refine his design; he was awarded a second patent in 1885, by which time the company had changed its name to the Berlin Iron Bridge Company.
The late 19th century was a good time to be in the iron bridge business. As the industry developed, the price of iron trusses steadily dropped until they were competitive with wooden spans, especially when their superior durability and resistance to damage during floods was figured in (wooden bridges typically lasted only 20 to 30 years). The only other alternative, for shorter spans only, was building arches in stone, which remained very expensive. Throughout America, local highway officials opted to replace their wooden bridges with iron, and firms such as the Berlin Iron Bridge Company were happy to oblige.
At its height, the Berlin Iron Bridge Company was probably the largest structural fabricator in New England. Some 400 workers were employed at its East Berlin plant, with another large 
group of workers in the field during the construction season. There is no definitive count of the company's bridges, though at least 600 are known to have been completed during its first ten years, and the company itself claimed at least 1,000.
Most were in the Northeast, though even today Berlin trusses survive as far away as Texas. A few multiple-span bridges were of tremendous size, but most were a single span in length, with through-trusses used in crossings over 100 feet and pony trusses for shorter spans. The lenticular design accounted for the bulk of the company's output, although it also produced other bridge types, specialized industrial structures such as dock cranes, and ironwork for roofs and buildings.
The Berlin Iron Bridge Company was absorbed in 1900 by the American Bridge Company, a largely successful attempt by J.P. Morgan to monopolize the country's structural fabricating industry. Almost immediately, some former Berlin Iron Bridge employees started a new firm, the Berlin Construction Company, which soon regained much of its predecessor's influence in the New England bridge market. It remains in business today as Berlin Steel.
