The Bridgeworks Story

Famous across Canada as exceptional steel fabricators, engineers designers and contractors, the Hamilton Bridge Works Co. Ltd helped make steel truss bridges the industry standard; prior to the company’s success, most bridges and buildings were reliant upon timber, which imposed certain limitations on engineers’ ambition. The arrival of concrete and steel allowed for more permanent structures and greater confidence in construction. 

By connecting communities across the country, Hamilton Bridge Works enjoyed runaway commercial success, undergoing massive growth at the dawn of the 20th century.

By 1909, the Bridge Works had an eight-acre footprint and 900 yards of street frontage. Its facilities — operated by electricity, compressed air and natural gas throughout — were directly served by several railway sidings right into the shipping yards, and an handful of massive electric travelling cranes for loading and offload shipments.  

Specializing in steel bridge construction, and making steel pans and components for the fabrication of buildings and bridges, railway turntables, power housings and running sheds, water towers, and and steel poles for telegraph, telephone and electric power grids. Because of that innovative and holistic approach, the company had a central role in the construction of many signature buildings in Hamilton and structures across Canada — BC to NB, NWT to NS. 

The Bridge Works first made its name building iron and steel bridges for Canada’s railway system. The company’s projects spanned the country, from Vancouver’s First Narrows Bridge (later known as Lion’s Gate Bridge), to the Stoney Creek Bridge, built in the Rocky Mountains for CN,  Fort Macleod Alberta’s Oldman River Bridge, Lethbridge Alberta’s Belly River Bridge, Montreal’s Bluewater Bridge, as well as Canadian Pacific Railway Bridges at Grand Falls and Upper Woodstock, New Brunswick. They built several bridges over the Welland Canal, as well as the steel inlet valves in the canal itself.  Locally, the company’s steel spans provided the bones of the High Level Bridge at Desjardins Canal, the Burlington Canal Lift Bridge, and the Burlington Skyway. 

Bridge Works engineers and fabricators did not lack for ambition. They built the Niagara Navigation Company’s side wheel steamer Chippewa, the largest passenger steamer on Lake Ontario at that time. They helped construct the St. Clair Tunnel, the first full-size subaqueous tunnel built in North America, for Grand Trunk Railway. They also constructed Traders Bank Building in Toronto, ON, the tallest building in the Commonwealth in its day and one of Canada’s few remaining early 20th Century skyscrapers. 

“We endeavour,” the company said matter-of-factly, “to make our work a standard of excellence.”