Before demolition crews get anywhere near the Eagle Avenue lift bridge, Geoffrey Moreland made sure one piece of it would survive. The Medina resident and local historian managed to salvage the roughly 450-pound control panel from the bridge, a structure that once carried cars over the Cuyahoga River and now sits locked in place, awaiting removal.
The Eagle Avenue lift bridge is Cleveland's first vertical lift bridge, built in the 1930s, according to Signal Cleveland. It was designed by the firm founded by John Alexander Low Waddell, the inventor of the lift bridge itself, the outlet reports. Separately, Bridges and Tunnels notes that construction on the span ran from 1930 to 1931 as part of the Cleveland Union Terminal project.
Cars traveled across the bridge until Cleveland closed it down in 2005, per the same Signal Cleveland account, which also puts the span's operating run at 1931 to 2005. Bridges and Tunnels, however, states the bridge was taken out of service in 2004 due to structural concerns involving a column, while a drone-photography site, Propped Productions, lists 2005 as the year it was placed out of service. Whatever the exact year, the bridge's span has remained locked nearly 100 feet above the Cuyahoga River ever since, according to Signal Cleveland's reporting.
Inspections Point Toward the End
The bridge's fate has been building for years. A 2021 inspection report found many of its significant components corroded and damaged and recommended either demolition or top-to-bottom renovations as long-term fixes, the outlet's report states. Bridges and Tunnels cites a separate 2022 inspection that found severe corrosion and concluded the bridge required complete removal.
The timeline for taking the bridge down is also inconsistent between sources. Signal Cleveland reports the bridge will come down in winter 2026-2027, with the span to be lowered onto barges, taken apart and carried away on the river as early as January 2027, per the Ohio Department of Transportation, which is overseeing the project. Bridges and Tunnels, meanwhile, lists a demolition window that was scheduled to begin in July 2024 and continue until May 2025.
Talking His Way Onto the Job Site
Moreland did not want to see the bridge's control panel disappear along with the rest of the structure. After a few emails and phone calls with ODOT, he got the OK to save the panel, the outlet's report notes. Demolition contractors lowered the panel intact to street level, though it was dropped approximately 15 feet in the process, according to the same account.
The panel itself carries its own quirk of history: it is not the original 1930s equipment, but instead dates back to the 1950s or 1960s. Moreland is now restoring the panel and has said the bridge's control panel was its heart. He plans to connect the restored piece to a scaled-down model of the Eagle Avenue lift bridge.
A Firefighter Building a Museum From Scratch
Moreland moved home to Medina in 2019 after five years of Air Force service and now splits his time between working as a firefighter and running a fire-prevention business. Outside of that, he runs the Truss & Rivets YouTube channel and has collected photos, videos, personal accounts and documents about the bridge. He also owns a working railroad crossing and has restored a Thunderbolt air raid siren, according to Signal Cleveland's profile of him.
Those pursuits feed into a bigger ambition: Moreland is trying to establish the Cleveland Museum of Engineering and Transportation, aiming to preserve Cleveland's industrial history, he has said. The project needs a board, funding and a location, and it doesn't have a location, timeline, or any other details nailed down yet, per the outlet's reporting.
The Eagle Avenue bridge won't be the last of its kind standing watch over the Cuyahoga. Cleveland still has four lift bridges in operation, along with a swing bridge on Center Street, according to Signal Cleveland. Whether any of them ever end up alongside the Eagle Avenue panel in a future Cleveland museum remains, for now, an open question.
