Despite this, it remains one of the most interesting abandoned places in Kentucky to explore.īuilt to care for about 50 tuberculosis patients during an early 20 th-century surge of the disease, the Waverly Hills Sanatorium opened on a former residential property in southwestern Louisville in 1912. The business offers bungee jumping excursions from the bridge for several months each year, billing it as the highest platform bridge jump in North America. The nonprofit group Tyrone Bridge and Railroad Company formed in 2003 in an effort to raise the necessary funds to convert the bridge into a pedestrian and bike trail or incorporate it into the Bluegrass Railroad Museum’s tourist line, but failed to accomplish either goal, dissolving in 2011.Īfter Norfolk Southern Railway acquired the Norfolk & Western, it donated the bridge to the Young’s High Bridge Historical Society, which sold it in 2013 for use by Vertigo Bungee. Louisville Southern was absorbed by the Norfolk & Western Railway in the 1980s and decommissioned the line between Lawrenceburg and Versailles in 1985, effectively abandoning the bridge. Traffic gradually declined in the latter half of the 20 th century, punctuated by a couple of high-profile derailments near the Tyrone Power Station in the 1970s.
The bridge saw its last passenger train crossing in 1937, but continued to carry freight trains across the river for the next several decades. It was named in honor of Louisville Southern Railroad President William Young and operated for the next century as part of the railroad’s industrial Lexington to Lawrenceburg Division. Construction of the steel bridge began in February 1889 and remarkably, it began carrying rail traffic just six months later. This Pratt deck truss bridge once ferried trains for the Louisville Southern and Norfolk & Western railways across the Kentucky River.
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