Carrollton Viaduct
bridge in United States of America
The Carrollton Viaduct, spans the Gwynns Falls stream near Carroll Park in southwest Baltimore, Maryland, USA. It is the first stone masonry bridge for railroad use in the United States and was built for the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, founded in 1827. Construction began in 1828 and was completed in 1829. It remains the oldest such bridge still in service in the United States.
The bridge is named in honor of Charles Carroll of Carrollton (1737–1832), of Maryland, known for being the last surviving signer of the Declaration of Independence, the only Roman Catholic in the Second Continental Congress (1775–1781), and wealthiest man in the Thirteen Colonies of the time of the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783).
In 1971, the Carrollton Viaduct was designated a National Historic Landmark and listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It was designated a National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark by the American Society of Civil Engineers in 1982 and is now owned and operated by CSX Transportation.
Description
The bridge is currently one of the world's oldest railroad bridges still in use for rail traffic, carrying loads far greater than originally envisioned. It was named after Charles Carroll of Carrollton (1737–1832), the last living signer of the Declaration of Independence and a director of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, who laid the cornerstone on July 4, 1828. As he laid the first stone he said, "I consider this among the most important acts of my life, second only to my signing the Declaration of Independence." Builder Caspar Wever and designer James Lloyd completed the structure for the railroad in November 1829, at an officially listed cost of $58,106.73 (equal to $1,756,821 today). The actual cost of the construction may have been as high as $100,000.
“Carrollton Viaduct” enters the record as bridge in United States of America. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Carrollton, Viaduct and bridge can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Place names and jurisdictional language are key evidence: both can reveal earlier catalogue descriptions and overlooked record series. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 3, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5046667. Authority coordinates are 39.275, -76.655. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1827, 1828, 1829 and 1737.
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This entry incorporates text from “Carrollton Viaduct” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.