a black and white photo of a road crew paving a street beneath a railroad bridge — In this 1930 photo, crews pave 3rd Street underneath what will eventually become the infamous Can Opener. | Photo courtesy UofL, ASC

The railroad overpass at the corner of 3rd Street and Eastern Parkway has been having a moment since the beginning of the I-65 shutdown. The notorious "Can Opener," with its lower-than-average 11-ft 8-in clearance, has seen an uptick in truck collisions since the project began.

We may not have the solution to Louisville's Can Opener dilemma, but we do have some history, thanks to the digital photo archives over at the UofL Libraries.

A black and white photo of a manufacturing plant. In the right-hand side of the photo is a railroad bridge — The area to the east of The Can Opener was home to a manufacturing plant back in 1932. | Photo courtesy UofL, ASC.

It's tough to pin down exactly when exactly the bridge was built, but all signs point to roughly 1930. It was part of the Southern Railway System, a company formed by J. P. Morgan in 1894. Southern Railway merged with Norfolk & Western Railway in 1982 to form Norfolk & Southern, the company that still owns + cares for the bridge today.

a black and white photo of a street passing under a railway overpass. — The cars looked a bit different in 1949. | Photo courtesy UofL, ASC

Fast forward a few years, and we find this snapshot from 1949. Notice anything interesting? The sign on the right shows a clearance of "12 ft., 6 in." That's a full 10 inches more space than the currently marked 11 ft. 8 in. This got us wondering — what changed?

It may be that added layers of pavement and asphalt over the years have raised the level of the road, but we're not sure. We've put out some feelers to find out exactly when the sign was updated, so stay tuned. If you have any information about this change, or you have a photo of the can opener from between 1949 and today, reply to this email and let us know.

A flooded railroad underpass featuring a car nearly fully submerged. — There were no fatalities during the 2009 flooding, but over 200 people had to be rescued from rooftops. | Photo courtesy UofL, ASC

The Can Opener Floods

As far as we could find, there is a gap in the photo record of the Can Opener for most of the 20th century. There are quite a few pictures, however, of a significant event in Louisville history from nearly 20 years ago: the flash floods of August, 2009.

As they say: Turn around, don't drown, especially under the Can Opener. | Photo courtesy UofL, ASC

In the early morning hours of Tuesday, Aug. 4, 2009, a localized system of thunderstorms dropped five inches of rain on Louisville and Southern Indiana in just 90 minutes. Rainfall rates as high as 8.8 inches per hour were reported throughout the area. UofL’s campus was among the locations hit the hardest, with several people being rescued by boat from a campus office building. The Can Opener was no exception, as these photos can attest.