Named for a village along the Genesee River, the bridge is sometimes referred to as the Portageville Bridge. this site originally held a wooden timber structure that, depending on which account one reads, took timber from 200 to 300 acres of woods to build! A sight-seeing advertizement describes it as "800 feet long, 234 feet high and using over 1,600,000 [board?] feet of timber and 108,862 pounds of iron." There was a walkway and stairs that allowed passengers to get off and look around, with views over the Genesee River gorge and a 70-foot high waterfall almost under the bridge. The story goes that William Pryor Letchworth was inspired to purchase a few hundred acres to build a country retreat near this spot after making such a sight-seeing stop. The rail route was part of the NY, Buffalo & Erie Railroad southern tier line from New York City to Buffalo. There is lots of information and some illustrations on the NY Heritage Press website.

Alas, one hazard of wood construction, the structure was destroyed by fire on 6 May 1875. The historical lore has it that a contract for iron work was signed within a matter of days. The foundations were checked and repaired and towers were under construction in a matter of weeks. On 31 July, a test train of six locomotives crossed the new bridge! The replacement happened so efficiently that conspiracy theories hatched suggesting work was already underway and the fire might be suspicious.

There was a major upgrade in 1903 which replaced some wrought iron structural parts with steel. Speed limits are low and there have been other repairs required though the years, but it is still in use as part of the Norfolk-Southern. As seen below, Ye Olde Photographer personally saw a train cross it in September 2014. And low and behold, there is a YouTube video of a special excursion passenger train crossing on 19 September 2014.

One reason for recording this structure was the knowledge there is an active project underway to replace this bridge. You can learn quite a bit about the project from a Norfolk-Southern document available at Frank's Rail World.

There are some B&W film shots of this bridge in the NY 2014 Monochrome Gallery.
This gallery is part of the 2014 tour!