By Roger Chartier

1902 - New Bedford - Fairhaven Bridge Rebuilt

The quality of this picture is poor, but you can see the essential result of the reconstruction that took 2 years.

The picture from 1900 shows that the foreground section was not finished as it is in the picture.

About one third up on the left side of the image you can see the curved roadway that was used to connect to the mainland while the straight section was being built.

The area of buildings behind the road was where the first oil was refined into product.

The Coal Pockets facility was there on the right (south side) of the bridge.

Ships laden with coal would pull up to the facility and empty coal from a chute into the different coal pockets according to size and hardness, bituminous (soft), anthracite (hard) and by size for select uses.
(click the picture for a larger image)

The roadbed appears to be paved. There is also the set of trolley tracks embedded into the road.

This is the view is looking toward Fairhaven