The Town Bridge

Ithiel Town (1784-1844) was a pioneering American architect and engineer based in New Haven. As well as designing many well-known buildings in New Haven and across the newly-formed United States, in 1820 he patented a revolutionary new design: the lattice truss bridge.

Town had a strong professional relationship with Eli Whitney and asked Whitney for comments on the bridge design. Whitney was impressed, writing that the design’s "simplicity, lightness, strength, cheapness & durability, are in my opinion such as to render it highly worthy of attention."

In 1823, Whitney commissioned the very first Town lattice truss bridge to carry the Hartford and New Haven Turnpike across the Mill River just north of the EWMW site. His evaluation of the design proved true: not only was the bridge over the Mill River successful, Town sold the design up and down the East Coast.