Qualla: Arlington Memorial Bridge

Arlington Memorial Bridge: Introduction

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit AgnosticPreachersKid, Public domain. Warren Harding sat in a Cadillac on Highway Bridge for three hours on November 11, 1921. The presidential motorcade was trying to cross from Washington to Arlington National Cemetery for the dedication of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Tens of thousands of mourners were trying to do the same thing on the same single river crossing, and the bridge could not handle the load. Harding, by all accounts furious by the time he reached the ceremony, decided that this would not happen again. By June 1922 he had pushed an appropriation through Congress to fund the long-dormant Arlington Memorial Bridge Commission. By 1932 the bridge was open. Today it carries the formal axis of the National Mall west across the Potomac to the foot of Arlington National Cemetery and the columns of Arlington House - the prewar home of Robert E. Lee. The siting was deliberate. The reconciliation symbolism was intentional. The bridge took 46 years to get built.

Image: AgnosticPreachersKid | Public domain

Arlington Memorial Bridge: Forty-Six Years of Argument

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Tania Dey, CC BY-SA 3.0. Congress first proposed a Potomac bridge at this site on May 24, 1886. The War Department reported back the next year recommending a Lincoln-Grant Memorial Bridge. The Washington Post lobbied for adding Robert E. Lee to the dedication. The 1887 proposal evolved into a Grant Memor...

Image: Tania Dey | CC BY-SA 3.0

Arlington Memorial Bridge: Harding's Traffic Jam

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Tim Evanson from Washington, D.C., United States of America, CC BY-SA 2.0. After Harding's frustrated experience on November 11, 1921, the bridge commission finally got funded. A joint meeting of the Arlington Memorial Bridge Commission, the Commission of Fine Arts, and Vice President Coolidge on December 18, 1922, unanimously confirmed the McMillan Pla...

Image: Tim Evanson from Washington, D.C., United States of America | CC BY-SA 2.0

Arlington Memorial Bridge: The Bascule That Stopped Opening

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Jonathunder, Public domain. The central drawbridge was designed to lift on demand for ship traffic. In practice the demand declined steadily as the Georgetown waterfront industrial activity faded. The bascule was last opened for an actual ship in 1961. After that it was operationally closed. Its mechanical ...

Image: Jonathunder | Public domain

Arlington Memorial Bridge: Symbolism on the Axis

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Anita Mishra, CC BY-SA 3.0. The bridge functions as much as a symbol as a road. The eastern approach in Washington faces the Lincoln Memorial directly. The western approach in Arlington runs straight to Arlington House at the top of the hill above the cemetery. Arlington House had been the prewar home of Ro...

Image: Anita Mishra | CC BY-SA 3.0