Historia del puente colgante de Mengibar, una obra de referencia la ingeniería civil española del siglo XIX

Abstract

Suspension bridges were introduced In the 1840s in Spain and around a dozen were built all over the country. This type of bridge construction was not pursued by Spanish engineers and these first examples remain as the only references. These bridges frequently presented problems and almost all of them were eventually replaced by other types of bridge. While the majority of these bridges are no longer standing, they were seen as very significant civil engineering accomplishments in their day and as landmarks that still remain in the collective memory. This article wishes to restore the memory of one of these bridges, the Mengibar bridge (Jaen) that for 85 years (from 1845 to 1930) carried the Bailen to Granada road over the River Guadalquivir. The history of the design and building process has been reconstructed from documents held in various Spanish archives and a description is given of the most outstanding events during the life of this singular engineering work.