Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in
1976. A historic map-sheet match is not published yet. The record needs a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary.
From the record
“B & O Railroad Viaduct is a historic structure in Bellaire, Ohio and Benwood, West Virginia, listed in the National Register of Historic Places on June 22, 1976.”
Wikipedia article B & O Railroad Viaduct, CC BY-SA 4.0.
one of 15 National Register listings in Belmont County · listed in 1976 · category: Structure.
National Register reference number.76001370- the number the National Park Service assigned this property when it was listed, and the key its nomination file is catalogued under at the National Archives.
In 1845 the second church building was erected, and here the church saw its maximum growth. But its growth was seriously checked l)y the rapid formation of other Presbyterian churches in its original held ; beginning with Martin's Ferry in 1841 and following rapidly were founded Wegee, Kirkwood, Bethel, Bellaire ist, Farmington, Coal Brook, Bellaire 2nd, and last, Pleasant Valley. Each have drawn on the territory or population of Rock Hill until only a small part of the lordly heritage of the fathers remains to the old church. Notwithstanding the forming of these new churches and the constant stream of emigrants going forth, the old church yet retains 117 communicants, slightly more than the average for the 60 years past.
West Wheeling in Pultney township is midway between Bridgeport and Bellaire. The old town was laid out in 1838 by Martin S. Todd, and contains a population today of 574. The principal industry is the paper mill of David Wagner, but many of the employees of the mills and factories in the city of Wheeling opposite make their homes in West Wheeling, crossing and recrossing the river upon the old ferry that was established in the early history of the village. For years the leading industry of West Wheeling was coal mining and flatboat building as conducted by Redick McKee. It was a profitable industry.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The
federal wildfire occurrence database
lists 20 fires within 5 miles of B & O Railroad Viaduct between
1992 and 2018, burning about 37 acres in total. None started naturally. 4 were recorded as arson.
Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted
here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.
Reported cause
Fires
Debris and open burning
6
Arson/incendiarism
4
Power generation/transmission/distribution
3
Equipment and vehicle use
2
Misuse of fire by a minor
2
Recreation and ceremony
1
Missing data/not specified/undetermined
1
Railroad operations and maintenance
1
The most recent of
them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service
that recorded it.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. Museums hold 1,302 specimens
collected within 10 miles of B & O Railroad Viaduct between 1800 and
1975: 1,079 Plantae, 129 Fungi, 92 Animalia, 2 Unrecorded. 12 distinct Species records are shown.
Collected by A. D. Selby, A. D. Selby & E. L. Moseley, A. D. Selby & J. F. Hicks and others. Each is a
physical object with a catalogue
number, and each entry opens the museum's record. This is what was
collected and kept, not a survey of what lives here - nothing can be
concluded from a species being absent.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists
2 workings within 5 miles of B & O Railroad Viaduct: 2 past producers.
None of them still produces. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction, Limestone, General. Distance is straight-line from the
map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring
settlement's page as well.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The National Weather Service names
Bellaire, the town this property stands in, in 10 storm reports between 1995 and 2026: 5 thunderstorm wind, 2 flash flood, 2 hail, 1 flood.
No death or injury is recorded in these reports. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office
filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date
opens the federal record of that event.
Small streams were flooding do to ice jams between Bellaire and Neffs with Trough Run out of its banks flooding roads just off SR 149. Other flooding was reported west of Powhatan Point on Cats Run was flooding county road 56 and Cats Run Road near SR 148.
A few trees were downed by thunderstorm winds in Bellaire. South of Shadyside Pipe Creek went out of its banks, one car was swept away and some basements were flooded.
No historic map-sheet match is published
for this property yet. That does not mean no map exists. This record needs
a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary.
Browse the county's mapped places while that work is
pending.
From the nomination file
3,504 words on record
When this property was proposed for the
National Register, someone wrote the case for it: what the building is,
and why it matters. That document is a federal record in the public domain.
It is quoted below word for word, never summarised. The text was read off the scanned case file by machine, so the
occasional stray character is the recogniser's and the 1970s
typewriter's.
Description of the property
Bellaire, Pultney Township section 30, Belmont County, Ohio. This old arches, each 33' 4" long, center to center of each pier; 11' 0" in width; CONDITION DESCRIPTION EXCELLENT RUINS XGOOD XUNALTERED The structure under consideration is a 43-span cut-stone railroad viaduct FAIR The cut-stone which makes up the 43 perfect Roman arches of the Bellaire ture has changed little since its completion in June 187l. It is still spanning Guernsey 7),Belmont, Union and Crescent Streets in downtown _DETERIORATED XORIGINAL SITE in good condition and carries daily _UNEXPOSED road bridge over the Ohio River where the line oontinues on to Banwood, W.
CHECK ONE right on a grade of 6ou to a mile constituting the approach to the steel 35in height.The viaduct extends 3/4 ofa mile in a 6°curve to the as the streets mentioned above and joins with the old eye-bar truss rail- Viaduct has darkened over the years, but otherwise, this fine old struc- DATE viaduct AREAS OF
Statement of significance
in the Ohio Valley, the B & 0 Railroad crossed the Ohio River in 1855 and tween Baltimore, Md. and Columbus, Ohio and points beyond. We do not know Linville, both well-known and respected railroad bridge builders. Wendell washed away by flood waters in 1936 at Steubanville in 1863/64 using his truss patent. This bridge had a central through each.
Eminent bridge engineer, Theodore Cooper, dald that the era of long- 1400-1499 1700-1799 Historic COMMERCE COMMUNICATIONS INVENTION EDUCATION THEATER 1600-1699 SIGNIFICANCE RELIGION PERIOD SCIENCE SCULPTURE POLITICS/GOVERNMENT X1800-1899 AGRICULTURE LAW LITERATURE ECONOMICS MILITARY ARCHEOLOGY-HISTORIC INDUSTRY ARCHITECTURE XENGINEERING XTRANSPORTATION with forged eye-bars as tension members.Mr.Linville built a railroad bridge neer for the Pennsylvannia Central Railroad.He achieved bridge engineering bar truss over the river.Construction was authorized by Congress in July of -1500-1599 _EXPLORATION/SETTLEMENT freight across as some people say. The completion of this viaduct and bridge span truss bridges in America should date from the building of the Steuban- ville railroad bridge.
Bollman first worked under Benjamin Henry Latrobe, chief Engineer for the fame during the Civil War by bridging the Monongahela River with a railroad Henry Howe duly noted in his Historical Collections of Ohio that the B &O W.Va.
Quoted from the National Register nomination
for reference 76001370, 25 pages, held by the National Archives in Record
Group 79. See the
catalogue record.
Listed places nearby
6 within 8 miles
Other National Register properties close
enough to walk or drive between, ordered by distance from this one. Both
positions come from the same geocoding pass that matched these properties
to their map sheets.
Listing record. National Park Service National Register of Historic Places, listed-properties dataset, current to 2026-05-22.
Map join. Address geocoded through the United States Census geocoder, then tested against the published boundary of every sheet in the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection.
How this page is made. Listing fields come from federal records; map-sheet coverage is a labelled coordinate-to-boundary calculation, not a source-field claim.
Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.
Specimens. Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), https://www.gbif.org/. Only records licensed CC0 or CC BY are used. Records licensed CC BY-NC are excluded because this site carries advertising. Images are checked individually and any whose licence is non-commercial, no-derivatives or unreadable is refused.
Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.
Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.
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