The East Broad Top bridge over Aughwick Creek at Aughwick Mills

Where the East Broad Top Railroad crosses Aughwick Creek at Aughwick Mills, a concrete bridge carried the narrow gauge track. The Historic American Engineering Record photographed it in 1986 as HAER PA-403; Jack Boucher made seven black and white views and one color transparency, including two details of the first water pier from the north. The record holds no written history, only a cover sheet and the photograph index.

A 1991 inventory of the county's historic engineering and industrial sites, written by Nancy S. Shedd and published by the National Park Service, fills the gap. It records the bridge as a four span concrete structure 203 feet long, each span about 50 feet, completed in 1917, and says the concrete was reinforced with 40 pound railroad rail. According to the inventory it replaced an iron truss bridge built in 1914.

The line itself is older. The National Register nomination for the East Broad Top says the railroad ran between Robertsdale and Mount Union by 1874, and the Historic American Buildings Survey record for the Walker Farmstead near Shirleysburg says the EBT was carrying more than 143,000 tons of coal north to Mount Union by 1881, where the freight was transferred to the Pennsylvania Railroad. The nomination says that after the Second World War other fuels began to supplant coal and the line's business suffered; passenger service ended in 1953 and the company ran its last train on April 16, 1956. The 1991 inventory counted the long bridges at Aughwick Mills and Pogue among the structures still standing along the unused right of way, with much of the track still in place.

Checked 2026-09-05 · Library of Congress survey record, read in full

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