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Buy the "Great Projects" videos and companion book at ShopPBS. |
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107,000 Miles of Wire A guide cable was hauled from one side of the river to the other and hoisted atop the towers in the familiar inverted-arch shape. Then a wheel trailing a thin steel wire was sent up the guide wire and over the towers; then back and forth, day after day. Four hundred and thirty-four of these wires made a single large strand. When 612 strands were complete, they were bound together with wire and compacted to form a single cable 3-feet thick. The bridge had two pairs of these cables—107,000 miles of steel wire in all, weighing 28,100 tons. It took 10 months to spin them. |
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  How engineers contained and controlled the Colorado and Mississippi rivers. Thomas Edison lights up New York City; Sam Insull brings power to Chicago; and TVA electrifies rural America Constructing the George Washington Bridge Putting a major highway under Boston  |
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