West side of the Wheeling Suspension Bridge.  I noticed this effect in Lightroom when traversing the photos from this night’s shoot and thought it would make a good animated gif.  Hope you like it.

Thanks to @matthewdlyons for the Elements tip to create this.

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Dozens of balloons were released last Friday over Heritage Port in Wheeling, WV in remembrance of murder victims, each carrying a powerful message: Don’t ever forget.

Friday was the third annual National Day of Remembrance for Murder Victims. Each year, the nation’s capital hosts a candlelight vigil in observance of that day – but after Congress made that designation, Sharon Parker, victim/witness coordinator for the office of Ohio County Prosecutor Scott Smith, decided to bring the event closer to home.

For each of the past three years, the Ohio County Prosecutor’s office has teamed up with the U.S. Attorney’s Office of the Northern District of West Virginia to host a local event in conjunction with the national one. In addition to a candlelight vigil, family members of murder victims release balloons bearing messages to their loved ones into the evening sky.

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In 1816, with a strong interest in internal improvements, the legislatures of Virginia and Ohio authorized the formation of the Wheeling and Belmont Bridge Company (Belmont because the bridge company was to connect from Wheeling, West Virginia to Belmont County in Ohio). With the coming of the National Road to Wheeling, it was necessary to bridge the Ohio. Although the road reached Wheeling in 1818, it wasn’t until 1847 that the construction of a bridge was commissioned. In sharp competition with John Roebling, later noted for the famous Brooklyn Bridge, the company granted the contract to Charles Ellet Jr.

The span of the bridge is 1010 feet, measured from the center of the two supporting towers – the longest clear-span bridge in the world at the time. All materials for the bridge, including the drawn iron wire used to create the cables, were produced locally. The main cables rest upon iron rollers at the summits of each tower. The rollers relieve the strain on the cables caused by expansion and contraction with changes in temperature.

In 1854, high winds set up an oscillation in the deck structure that resulted in severe damage to the bridge. Under the supervision of Ellet, reconstruction work began almost immediately and the bridge was reopened in just three months. In 1867, the Citizen Railway Company was granted permission to lay tracks on the bridge to accommodate horse-drawn streetcars, a possibility indicated earlier by Ellet. In 1872, Washington Roebling, son of John Roebling, was commissioned to provide upgrades to the bridge which included the installation of the diagonal cable stays. The bridge remained essentially unchanged until 1956 when a new steel deck system was installed.

The most recent work on the bridge was completed in 1999 with repairs to the stiffening truss and wire rope stays, complete inspection and rewrapping of the cables, and the installation of new illumination. Today, the bridge stands as one of the finest examples of pre-Civil War engineering and is considered as one of the world’s most significant and historic bridges.

Background information courtesy of donnan.com.

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