Bill Text: WV HCR40 | 2017 | Regular Session | Introduced
Bill Title: John Hancock Hall Memorial Bridge
Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Republican 12-0)
Status: (Introduced - Dead) 2017-03-02 - To House Roads and Transportation [HCR40 Detail]
Download: West_Virginia-2017-HCR40-Introduced.html
HOUSE CONCURRENT RESOLUTION 40
(By Delegates Upson, Moore, Espinoa, Householder, Barrett, Hill, Cowles, Kessinger, Phillips, Wagner, Westfall and Wilson)
[Introduced March 2, 2017]
Requesting the Division of Highways name bridge number 19-340-14.66 (19A037) (39.32014, - 77.74155), locally known as HARPERS FERRY BRIDGE, carrying US 340 over the Shenandoah River, Park Access Road and CSX Railroad in Jefferson County, the “John Hancock Hall Memorial Bridge.”
Whereas, John Hancock Hall was the inventor of the M1819 Hall breech-loading rifle and was a mass production innovator; and
Whereas, In 1819, John Hancock Hall, a New England gun maker, signed a contract with the United States War Department to produce 1,000 breech loading rifles, a weapon he had designed and patented in 1811; and
Whereas, Under the terms of the contract Hall came to Harpers Ferry, where he constructed an industrial complex along the Shenandoah River. This site soon became known as Hall’s Rifle Works, and the small island on which it stood was called Lower Hall Island; and
Whereas, Hall spent several years tooling new workshops and perfecting precision machinery for producing rifles with interchangeable parts – a boldly ambitious goal for an industry which was traditionally based on the manual labor of skilled craftsmen; and
Whereas, Hall’s innovations in construction, tools, controls, stops and gauges were historic breakthroughs in milling iron and machine tools; and
Whereas, The men who had learned Hall’s methods of interchangeable parts, while working at his factories in Harpers Ferry, went on to apply those methods to production of shoes, watches, clocks, bicycles, clothing, rubber goods, and later, automobiles. Hall’s methods transformed the United States from an economy of workshop craftsmen to a nation of industrialized mass production, the American System; and
Whereas, Hall’s achievement formed the basis of mass production that ushered in our modern age; therefore, be it
Resolved by the Legislature of West Virginia:
That the Division of Highways is hereby requested to name bridge number 19-340-14.66 (19A037) (39.32014, - 77.74155), locally known as HARPERS FERRY BRIDGE, carrying US 340 over the Shenandoah River, Park Access Road and CSX Railroad in Jefferson County, the “John Hancock Hall Memorial Bridge”; and be it
Further Resolved, That the Commissioner of the Division of Highways is hereby requested to erect signs at both ends of the bridge, in bold and prominent letters, proclaiming the bridge as the “John Hancock Hall Memorial Bridge”; and be it
Further Revolved, That the Clerk of the House of Delegates forward certified copies of this resolution to the Secretary of the Department of Transportation.
