June 1992

Old Highway 19E Bridge at Tunnel 1

You'll see this bridge in several of my photos from over the years, and you can follow its condition. This is the old 19E highway bridge that ran right next to and lower than the wood deck covered bridge at Hampton. We're on the Hampton side of the Doe River. This bridge was built around 1915 by the same people that built the highway bridge downriver across the Doe at Valley Forge and it was of the same design. Here the highway crossed the river then turned and ran underneath the 3-span ET&WNC deck bridge and went around the ridge. The railroad just tunneled straight through the ridge with tunnel 1.

These bridges were interesting in how they were built. The bridge itself, not the supports, were hollow with formed concrete walls. They were then filled with dirt and rock, and then either concrete was poured over the dirt or asphalt was put over it. In later years, they had to put stabilizing bars with caps on the ends through the bridges to reinforce the sides and hold them together to keep them from spreading. You can see 2 of them at the center of the bridge. This one still stands, barely, but the one at Valley Creek was torn out in the early 90s to make room for the widening of 19E from Elizabethton to Hampton.