A bridge like this one once spanned the Occoquan River near what is now Woodbridge, Virginia. It used an innovative truss system that changed the way bridges were made in the United States.
One of the most famous toll bridges in the United States once spanned a stretch of the Occoquan River, an otherwise modest little river that winds through Virginia.
That toll bridge was integral in carrying people and resources north and south along the eastern corridor of the United States when there were only a handful of states “united.”
As a result of that structure and the mindful persistence of one of Virginia’s famous families, the town of Woodbridge got its name.
To tell the story we have to go way back to the 17th century, when America was still a vast wilderness occupied by many people with many different ways and customs. Europeans had been in what…