Bridges are obviously important in a town named Gauley Bridge, and various remnants of several early spans across the Gauley River still exist. Upstream, two stone piers (one now ruinous) remain from the second (1828) bridge and its 1862 replacement, a wire suspension bridge (585 feet long and 10 feet wide) constructed by the Philadelphia firm of Stone, Quigley and Burton. The 1862 bridge stood less than a year before retreating Union troops burned it. The railroad bridge is downstream, and the concrete piers adjacent to it supported a 1925 highway bridge. The present bridge carrying U.S. 60 across the Gauley virtually straddles its junction with the New River. A dramatically set cluster of Coffindaffer crosses (see introduction to Central West Virginia) stands on a rocky islet in the New, or now, Kanawha, River.