Rialto Bridge

You are currently standing on the Rialto bridge, just above the North Branch River. Beneath this bridge, steel reinforced concrete supports two lanes of traffic, two sidewalks and an entire building!

This is the site of the second oldest river crossing in Montpelier, as seen here in a detail from a woodcut from 1820.

The name of the bridge is a mystery. Originally, it was a slightly arched, wooden plank bridge. Perhaps its shape recalled, in a modest way, the famous Rialto bridge in Venice.

The commercial center of Montpelier was built around the North Branch. To protect the dense development, the natural banks were buried behind stone and cement walls, creating a channel that straightened and narrowed the river. Now during high water, the river runs faster and more powerfully.

The current Rialto Bridge was built in 1915 and survived the 1927 flood. The bridges upstream did not. In this photo, you can see their debris in the river.

Before leaving this spot, look upstream to the Langdon Street bridge. First constructed in 1899, it was destroyed in 1927 and replaced by a pony truss bridge. Mass produced structures, like this one, were instrumental in helping Vermont recover from its most destructive natural disaster.