The Walnut Street Bridge

Also known as The People’s Bridge, this steel truss bridge that long connected the City of Harrisburg and the Borough of Wormleysbrug, running across and through City Island, was built in 1890 and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Trollies once travelled across the bridge and original tracks are still in place at the park that has built at the western end of the bridge in Wormleysburg.

It was built to provide an alternative to the toll Market Street Bridge and has a 2,800 foot span as both a pedestrian and a vehicular bridge. The bridge was severely damaged in June 1996 when flood waters rose and a large ice jam crashed into the bridge, washing two of the seven western spans downstream. Later a third span collapsed leaving the West Shore span of the bridge damaged and disconnected, as it remains today. It is estimated that it would cost $5 million to save the bridge.

M. Harvey Taylor Bridge

This bridge is named after Maris Harvey Taylor, the longtime State Senator and President Pro Tempore of the Pennsylvania State Senate, as the third bridge (in addition to the Market Street and Walnut Street Bridges connecting Harrisburg to Wormleysburg and the West Shore) being built during 1951 and 1952.

Several houses were removed to allow construction of this bridge including a detached apartment building that was relocated to it’s current location one block south along North Front Street.

The photos below show the stream that was located on the site and which is now channeled by a pipe that can be seen north of the bridge carrying the water from this former stream into the river. This bridge connects to what is known as the “New By-pass” in Wormleysburg and which once allowed traffic on North Second Street to cross the roadway but which is now a divided highway at North Second Street.