Wheeling Suspension Bridge Restoration and Fifth Historic Bridge Conference, 1847-1849, 1880, 1941, 1971-1997 (includes facsimiles)

Kemp served on the governor’s task force to advise the Division of Highways on planning the renovation of the Wheeling Suspension Bridge in Wheeling, West Virginia, which reopened to traffic in 1983. In 1997, Kemp presented a paper on the restoration of the bridge at the Fifth Historic Bridge Conference in Cincinnati, Ohio. The engineering firms A.G. Lichtenstein & Associates and HNTB Corporation both consulted on the restoration, and C.C.L. Systems Ltd. corresponded about the wire manufacturing. The box includes correspondence, meeting agendas, reports, scholarly articles, meeting minutes, catalog records, research notes, photographic prints, drawings, greeting cards, clippings, brochures and a floppy disk. The box also includes facsimiles of the following: book excerpts, brochures, clippings, contracts, maps, and engineering drawings. Subjects include the Wheeling Suspension Bridge, the National Road, the Ohio River, John A. Roebling, Charles Ellet Jr., the New Jersey Historic Bridge Preservation Study, wrought iron, metal trusses, threaded wire, wrapping on cable wires on suspension bridges, and coordinating the presentation at the Historic Bridge Conference. Highlights include correspondence from then-Governor Jay Rockefeller to Kemp, an environmental assessment of the bridge, and metal parts from the original bridge used to test the strength of the wires. The following oversize items were moved to Map Cabinet 12, Drawer 13, Folder 6: 2 news clippings (1983), 46 engineering drawings (1995). The metal parts from the bridge were moved to Box 279.