Bridging Two Cities

In 1888, the need for urban transportation that could cross above the highest flood waters brought a bridge to this location between Wilkes-Barre and Kingston. Seeking to expand his streetcar company, Wilkes-Barre traction magnate John B. Reynolds wanted a bridge strong enough to carry tracks and trolleys, so he and other subscribers built the iron North Street Bridge, also known as the Pierce Street Bridge, and extended trolley service to Kingston customers. The electric streetcar soon outpaced travel by horse and buggy on the older wooden Market Street Bridge downstream. For the next 20 years, two lanes of traffic and the trolley used the crossing, with tolls collected by Reynolds' Wilkes-Barre & Kingston Bridge Company until 1908, when the county and later the state assumed control. Around that time, people crossing the bridge could see the Luzerne County Courthouse rising in Wilkes-Barre and the riverside park in Kingston donated by philanthropist Abram Nesbitt. Tropical Storm Agnes destroyed the North Street Bridge in June 1972. Because cars and trucks still depended on the crossing, a temporary structure opened in 1973, and four years later the present concrete and steel deck bridge, renamed Veterans Memorial Bridge, was completed.

Kingston, Pennsylvania · United States