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Former engineer recalls construction of bridge

Photo by Jim LaRose Jim LaRose, then the field engineer and timekeeper, and Billy Crane, structural erection supervisor, are pictured during the construction of the Chautauqua Lake bridge in 1981. The bridge is nearing its 40th birthday.

In 1981, for anyone who lived in the area between Stow and Bemus Point, a normal sight to see that year was most likely the construction of the Chautauqua Lake bridge.

At the time, Jim LaRose, a native of Virginia and 24 years old, was on site as field engineer and timekeeper. He would spend a year of his life in Chautauqua County before moving back to Virginia.

LaRose began working with Syracuse Rigging, who specialized in bridgework in Virginia but was told that his first job was to be in Chautauqua County building the bridge.

“My first question was, ‘Where is that?'” LaRose recalled. “They told me it was in upstate New York not too far from Lake Erie. I got a map out and saw it where it was and that the biggest town was a city called Jamestown. My parents were from Massachusetts, so I had visited up north, but as a life-long southerner I knew nothing about upstate New York.”

LaRose’s wife, Debbie, found work at what used to be the General Nutrition Center in the Chautauqua Mall, and in February LaRose officially began working on the bridge.

Photo by Jim LaRose

LaRose would work with Shane Emerson, who was the project superintendent, and Billy Crane, who was the structural erection supervisor. According to LaRose, while eventually there would be over 100 workers on the bridge, the three of them would remain the only company men during the duration of the building.

LaRose described one of his first duties on site as helping to erect the girders on the Stow side of the bridge.

“One of my jobs as the field engineer was to verify the final elevation of each girder end during erection,” LaRose said. “It was a rule by the New York Department of Transportation that each end of the girder had to be within 2 inches of its final elevation before you could place bolts and tighten them. This rule did not make a lot of sense to me, but we carried it out.”

When the weather began to get warmer in March, what LaRose described as “the real work” began on the bridge. That was when more equipment like cranes and barges and tugboats arrived and the men could have a crew set up on each side to begin the work.

“When the girders and bracing arrived from High Steel on the Stow side, we would use a landside crane to load the steel onto a working barge,” LaRose said. “The working tugboat would then push it out on the lake to the erection position. The large crane would hoist the girder into place, and I would be up on the bridge with my surveying level to verify the position. Then the bolting would begin. The smaller barge-mounted crane would erect the connecting frames and other steel used between the girders to keep everything solidly braced.”

Sometimes fun and games crept in during normal work– specifically in the form of paycheck poker — something LaRose found out about as part of his job as timekeeper was to deliver paychecks.

“The workers soon realized that each check had a serial number at the top of each and started a weekly pool based on the numbers being a poker hand,” LaRose said. “It cost $10 to play, so if 50 men were in it was a pot of $500. I did not know they were doing this at first. The men were always glad to see me on Fridays handing out paychecks, and one day a worker said before I gave him his check, ‘Give me twos, Jimmy, deuces are wild this week.’ So, Fridays always had a little bit more drama after that.”

By mid-December, construction on the bridge — known now as the Veterans Memorial Bridge — was completed with its official opening in 1982. For LaRose, his last day was Dec. 20. Then, he and his now ex-wife Debbie returned home to Virginia.

Now 64, remarried and with two sons from Debbie, LaRose lives near Mobile, Alabama. He described his memories of the year he spent in Chautauqua County as very happy.

“I have great memories of Jamestown and our time there,” he said. “Other than the cold of winter, I have great memories of our time there and wish I could visit again someday.”

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