City officials joined state leaders with the West Virginia Division of Highways on a Zoom meeting Wednesday morning scheduled to discuss the future of the suspension bridge. The decision had been a long-awaited one since the bridge had been closed to vehicles since 2019.

Wheeling Mayor Denny Magruder noted that local officials appreciated the fact that the WVDOH organized a meeting to inform them about the final decision on the fate of the bridge. However, the announcement was taken in a way as a formality.

“Let’s be honest, it’s a foregone conclusion,” Magruder said Wednesday. “We’ve actually felt strongly for a long time that that bridge was not going to be reopened to traffic. When they changed the travel lanes on Main Street, that was a sign to me that a decision had been made.

“It was no surprise.”

Magruder said the meeting was a good one in which staff members, district engineers, communications officials and local leaders shared their thoughts and were given details about the rigorous process that the state went through to make their decision.

“What they shared with us today was the fact that, look, that bridge was designed and built in 1847 to 1849 – that was the construction period,” the mayor noted. “Obviously, they weren’t able to consider what kind of weight and what kind of traffic was going to be on that bridge in 2026 back in that day.”

The Wheeling Suspension Bridge was not built to handle modern-day traffic, officials noted.

“This bridge was designed and built in the days of horses and buggies,” said WVDOH State Bridge Engineer Tracy Brown. “That it has lasted as long as it has is a testament to 19th century engineering.”

Designed by Charles Ellet Jr. and built by the Wheeling and Belmont Bridge Company, the suspension bridge first opened to traffic in November 1849. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1970 and was designated as a National Historic Landmark in 1975.

State officials noted the significance of the bridge – a rare surviving example of an antebellum engineering structure. It is the oldest major long-span suspension bridge in the world with a span of more than 1,000 feet.

Over the course of more than 175 years, the Wheeling Suspension Bridge has undergone several renovations as its age and the evolution of traffic from wagons to motor vehicles called for upgrades to the span.

In the years prior to 2019, the bridge had been opened to vehicular traffic connecting Wheeling’s downtown to Wheeling Island. Several incidents and weight limit violations caused a series of temporary closures, inspections, weight limit reductions and re-openings until September of 2019 when an oversized vehicle damaged the bridge. This caused what at the time seemed like another temporary closure to linger into a major renovation period.

The state spent around $18 million to rehabilitate the Wheeling Suspension Bridge, hiring Advantage Steel & Construction LLC to complete the work. Renovations included painting, improvements to the bridge’s superstructure and substructure, upgraded anchorage, new lighting and upgrades throughout.

That major rehab was completed in 2024, and since then, city leaders and the public have been awaiting an announcement from the state about the future of the bridge and whether or not vehicular traffic would be permitted again.

Wheeling City Councilman Ben Seidler, who represents the Ward 2 neighborhood of Wheeling Island and the downtown, expressed his frustration about the time it took the state to announce its decision.

“The Suspension Bridge was a critical link, especially during times of flooding,” said Seidler, who resides on Wheeling Island. “It was important to Island residents, and our expectation was to have it reopened.

“It’s abundantly clear based on the street markings what their decision was. It’s their arrogance with acting like we have no right to know about a major decision in our city … a decision they clearly made a long time ago.”

Magruder noted that state officials explained the consequences of reopening the bridge to vehicular traffic, having to maintain it, making sure it is safe and structurally sound enough to handle vehicles and risking another overweight accident that damages the bridge.

“They’ve tried to shore that bridge up for more than two decades. It’s been shut down and reopened several times. Weight restrictions were placed on it, but they were not heeded,” Magruder said. “Their experiment was to try to keep it open, and it didn’t work.”

State officials have taken information from consultants and engineers before reaching a conclusion that the best option for the suspension bridge will be to make sure it is safe and to preserve it as an historic monument that is iconic not only for the city of Wheeling but also for the state of West Virginia.

“While the Wheeling Suspension Bridge may no longer support traffic between downtown and Wheeling Island, the WVDOH is committed to ensuring the bridge continues to be a centerpiece of the community,” West Virginia Transportation Secretary Todd Rumbaugh said.

“They’ve assured us that they’re going to put together a program over the next couple of years,” Magrider noted. “They want to make sure that they improve it for pedestrian accessibility. They want to make it as safe as they can for pedestrians.”

Lighting is expected to be improved, new signage will be added and viewing points will be maximized as part of the plan that will be developed to repurpose the bridge. State officials have asked for the city’s cooperation moving forward with this plan, the mayor added.

“It’s a piece of our history, and it is going to be one of our tourism anchors,” Magruder said. “We’re just a few months away from breaking ground on the Gateway Center. Across the bridge on the Island side, we’re going to be completing the Gateway Park there – some green space on the river.

“It’s a centerpiece of the downtown and our rebuilding process. We can’t lose that bridge, we need to feature that bridge. Now we can plan a future.”

WVDOH engineers are securing a study to identify measures to preserve the bridge while complying with National Historic Landmark Standards. The study will include a review of options to reduce the weight of the existing bridge deck, design repairs to the original suspension cables, make masonry repairs to the towers, clean the cut stone and replace the timber stiffening trusses, state officials said.

“My team and I are just the latest in a long line of stewards for this iconic structure,” Rumbaugh said. “Our goal is to ensure this bridge is around for future generations to enjoy.”

Once an engineering consultant is under contract, significant coordination will begin with public, state and federal resource agencies and other interested parties to ensure the project meets both the engineering standards and that the repairs do not affect the historic integrity of the bridge, WVDOH officials noted.

“That is a very historic structure,” Magruder said. “That was the very first crossing of the Ohio River. That monument in downtown Wheeling – the Wheeling Suspension Bridge – is in fact, the true ‘Gateway to the West.’ The Arch in St. Louis is secondary, as far as I’m concerned.”