The Point Ellice Bridge crossed the Upper Harbor from Victoria, British Columbia, to Esquimalt. The first wooden pile bridge at the site was built in 1861 and was replaced in 1872. This was replaced by an iron bridge built in 1885 by the San Francisco Bridge Company for regular carriage, wagon, and pedestrian traffic. It was turned over to the City of Victoria by the Provincial Government in 1891. Engineering News described the bridge:

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Blackshear, Georgia, is located about 90 miles southwest of Savannah. The Savannah, Florida, and Western Railroad (formerly the Atlantic Gulf Railroad) ran southwesterly from Savannah to Bainbridge and opened in December 1867 after starting construction as early 1859. About one mile northeast of Blackshear, the line crossed the Alabaha (sometimes called the Hurricane) River on an iron bridge that was flanked by long wooden trestles as was common at the time to keep costs low. The trestle that failed was reported to be 300 feet long and 25 feet above the ground. The trestle had been updated two years prior to the disaster with the Engineering News reporting,

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The Boston & Providence Railroad built the Dedham Branch running southwesterly from Boston towards Dedham, Massachusetts. The 120-foot-span Bussey Bridge was located six-miles out of Boston and crossed South Street in Roslindale at a 45-degree skew angle. Originally a wooden bridge, sized for two tracks but only carrying one, it sat on masonry abutments. It was called the “Tin Bridge” as the wood was covered with tin to minimize the threat of fire. As the wood decayed, one of the wooden trusses was replaced with an iron Whipple Truss bridge, and the deck structure was supported by this hybrid bridge. In 1876, the railroad decided to replace the remaining wooden truss with another iron truss. Engineering News described the bridge as follows,

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The Central Vermont Railroad was chartered on October 21, 1843, to run from Burlington on Lake Champlain to Windsor on the Connecticut River via St. Albans and Montpelier, the state Capital. It was opened to traffic at various times in 1849. It crossed the White River, a tributary of the Connecticut River about four miles north of White River Junction between Woodstock and West Hartford. A major high bridge was built across the river consisting of four spans of 140 feet and a short span of 70 feet, with a total length of approximately 630 feet on a large skew to the river. It was a 26-foot-deep, single track, double Towne lattice deck bridge, made of plank and strengthened by heavy timber arches with the piers and abutments built of granite. It was covered on the sides and top to protect the trussing from the weather. Its top was also covered with iron plates to minimize the chance of fire. From the track to the surface of the ice (water) was 42 feet, with the bottom of the trusses 16 feet from the river’s surface. The bridge was considered by many to be a fine example of bridge design and construction.

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The Connecticut Western Railroad was chartered on June 25, 1868, to run from Hartford, Connecticut to the New York State line at Salisbury, where it was planned to connect with the Dutchess & Columbia Railroad in New York State near Millerton, NY. It would then connect to the New York & Harlem Extension railroad running northerly out of New York City towards Albany, NY. It was completed on December 21, 1871, with many of its bridges being wood and iron Howe Trusses, even though many railroads had adopted iron bridges by this date. Tariffville was a small town west of Hartford and located in a bend in the Farmington River that generally flowed eastward into the Connecticut River. …

The Ashtabula Bridge disaster was one of the most publicized American bridge failures of the 19^th century. In 1865, the Lake Shore & Southern Michigan Railroad was faced with the task of replacing a wooden bridge over Ashtabula Creek in northeastern Ohio. The president of the railroad was Amasa Stone, who had purchased the patent rights for the Howe Bridge from William Howe, his brother-in-law, in 1841. …

Dixon is located about 97 miles west of Chicago on the southwesterly flowing Rock River, a tributary of the Mississippi. A wooden bridge crossed the river at Dixon for years but was frequently washed out in floods. In 1868, it was decided that an iron toll bridge was required, and the Mayor solicited bids. Several committees of the City Council visited bridges and bridge works in Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, and elsewhere. A total of 11 bridge companies submitted proposals for 45 different bridge styles and lengths from wood to iron. …

Squire Whipple (STRUCTURE, September 2005, January 2015) built one of his early bowstring iron trusses over the Enlarged Erie Canal in Albion, New York, in 1848. He wrote of his early bridges: “About the same period (1840), my own attention was directed to the subject of iron bridges, and I designed the plan of my Patent Iron Trussed Bridge, patented 1841, and built an experimental bridge of 72 feet span, subsequently erected and now in use on the Erie Canal at Newville near Rome. I had, however, in the winter of 1841-42 previous to the erection of the above bridge on the canal, built a bridge of about 80 feet on First Street in Utica, which is the oldest iron bridge now in use on the canal; Trumbull’s first bridge, built a few months sooner than mine, having failed and been rebuilt since, as before stated.” …

This failure was not a structural failure but a failure of safe operational control of a wood and iron swing bridge built across the Norwalk River for the New York and New Haven Railroad. This line, as the name implies, was built to connect New York City with New Haven, Connecticut. The line was chartered in 1844, but construction did not start until 1847. The first train reached New Haven in January 1849. After leaving the New York and Harlem Extension at Williamsbridge, the line ran along the north shore of Long Island Sound and had to cross many streams and rivers draining from the mainland into the Sound. Some of these waterways were used for shipping, and the railroad had to provide for the boats using them. …

Squire Whipple built two wooden swing bridges in Ontario, Canada, in 1853 on the Great Western Railway. One was near Hamilton, Ontario, at Dundas and the other over the Welland Canal at Thorold Station just west of Niagara Falls. The bridge at Hamilton, called the Desjardins Bridge, opened in early November 1853. The turntable was on the bank and not in the center of the bridge as was generally the case. Large masonry abutments had been built to cut down the length of the swing span required. In addition, a wooden structure was built, upon which the swing span rested when it was in an open position. The waterway was 66 feet wide and required a swing span of eighty feet (from the center of turntable to the far abutment) to reach the other side of the channel. …