Canastota's Lift Bridge

Canastota's lift bridge was built because the existing high bridge had an inconvenient rise to the Peterboro Street level crossing the canal. Designed to lift horizontally out of the way of canal boat traffic, it was controlled manually from a small building twenty-four hours a day during the canal season. The volume of village water, directed by a series of intake and outtake valves, was piped to cylinders in all four corner towers, while an electric motor controlled a rack-and-pinion system that geared the four corners together so the bridge lifted evenly. It took approximately one minute and forty seconds to raise the bridge fifteen feet to the staircase level.

Canastota, New York · United States