Stone arches, granite-hued, carry the Market Street Bridge and you across the Susquehanna River between Harrisburg and Wormleysburg. This is the third bridge raised in this exact location and, today, the second oldest remaining bridge in Harrisburg. You can feel the long history underfoot: its present form comes from a widening done in 1926 to a two-lane replacement that itself rose in 1905 after the original Camelback Bridge was swept away in the flood of 1902.
That Camelback was designed by Theodore Burr, built by Jacob Nailor beginning in 1814, and opened as a toll bridge in 1820; it remained the town’s only river crossing until the Walnut Street Bridge appeared in 1890. Look for small, telling details: columns at the Harrisburg entrance were salvaged from the old State Capitol that burned in 1897. The bridge carries BicyclePA Route J and was honored with placement on the National Register of Historic Places on June 22, 1988; it was documented by the Historic American Engineering Record in 1997.
Notice the columns at the Harrisburg entrance, salvaged from the old State Capitol that burned in 1897, and the city of Wormleysburg across the river.