Downtown plaza marking the 1967 Ohio River bridge collapse that killed 46 people
Main Street at 6th Street, Point Pleasant, WV 25550
Research updated June 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
Free public memorial in downtown Point Pleasant.
Access
Wheelchair OK
Paved sidewalk plaza in the downtown district
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1928 · 1967 Silver Bridge collapse · 46 fatalities · Origin of the National Bridge Inspection Program
The Silver Bridge opened in 1928, an eyebar-chain suspension bridge carrying U.S. Route 35 across the Ohio River between Point Pleasant, West Virginia, and Kanauga, Ohio. On the evening of December 15, 1967, with the bridge full of rush-hour traffic, it collapsed into the river. About 300 people and 37 vehicles were on the structure; 46 people died. Forty-four bodies were recovered and identified, and two were never found.
The National Transportation Safety Board traced the failure to a single component: eyebar 330 in the north suspension chain, where a crack about a tenth of an inch deep had grown through stress corrosion and fretting before fracturing in brittle fashion. Because each link used only two eyebars, the failure of one transferred a fatal load to its partner, and the whole chain unzipped. The disaster led directly to the federal National Bridge Inspection Program. A replacement, the Silver Memorial Bridge, opened downstream on December 15, 1969, two years to the day after the collapse.
The memorial stands near the corner of Main and 6th Streets, close to where the bridge's on-ramp once met the town. A note for visitors: the names on the main plaque are the city council members and clerk who approved the memorial, not the dead. The 46 victims are remembered instead through the plaza's individual bricks. This account follows Wikipedia, the WVU Libraries history, and the on-site documentation recorded by Roadside America.
Sources
Point Pleasant's strangest chapter ties this disaster to the Mothman. The winged-figure sightings began in November 1966 and continued through 1967, and in the retellings that grew up afterward, the creature became an omen that supposedly foretold the bridge's fall on December 15, 1967. That framing comes from later books and films, not from the contemporary record, and the engineering verdict on the collapse is unambiguous: a corroded eyebar failed.
The memorial is treated by the town as a place of mourning, not a paranormal site. People leave flowers and read the bricks. We present it the same way, as a record of 46 deaths and the lasting changes to bridge inspection that followed, with the Mothman connection noted as folklore that attached itself to a real tragedy.
Notable Entities
Media Appearances
Stop at the small plaza near the corner of Main and 6th Streets, close to where the bridge's on-ramp once stood. A historical marker and plaque commemorate the disaster, and the plaza's bricks honor the victims with the inscription 'Those Who Lost Their Lives Are Remembered.' A short walk from the Point Pleasant River Museum, which holds the disaster exhibit.
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