Lake Pontchartrain
Brackish estuary crossed by a ruler-straight causeway once crowned the world's longest bridge over water.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to the causeway crossing Lake Pontchartrain near New Orleans opens with a trophy fight: Guinness credits a bridge in China with the longest span over water, while this nearly twenty-four-mile crossing claims the longest continuous stretch, with the far shore never coming into view. Behind that argument lies the story of how engineers solved the problem of building a bridge across open water in the nineteen fifties, using a concrete casting method nobody had tried before. You'll hear about the barges, the factory-line assembly, and the schedule the crews were racing against. Stand on the south shore and look for the moment the land disappears behind you.
This audio guide was created using AI.
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