Pages

Thursday, August 01, 2013

Spencerville Covered Bridge

I've written before about the historic covered bridge located in a small town not far from where we live. You can find that post here.

Last September, the covered bridge suffered thousands of dollars of damage when a semi, that was much too large for the bridge, drove across it. The semi broke beams and roof supports along the full length of the bridge and knocked down a sign on one end of the bridge as it drove out.

Reportedly, the truck’s driver had stopped to ask for directions and did receive instructions for crossing the river on a newer bridge that had been built to handle vehicles too large for the covered bridge or for those who preferred not to use the old bridge. Apparently, though, the semi driver’s GPS led him to the covered bridge instead of to the new bridge.

The bridge has now been repaired and is again open. Little of the span was salvageable after the semi tore apart its interior. Crews were able to save some of the iron shoes that held the trusses in place and used new parts to rebuild the bridge the way it was initially constructed in the 1870s.

Doug and I drove by there last Saturday and chuckled as we saw that, along with the repairs that had been completed, a cross-beam barrier had been added a few hundred yards before each entrance to the bridge. It's designed to let any vehicle that's too large for the bridge find out about it before entering the bridge itself.

One of the cross-beam barriers.

Here, you can see the new barrier, with the restored bridge in the background on the left.





The view of the other end of the bridge.



11 comments:

  1. hi, i did read the post several times - but did not find this tidbit of info - is this covered bridge in Ohio or Indiana ... tried to google it? no luck. thanks. ( :

    what a gorgeous covered bridge. the hubby & i just love checking them out when on our travels. have a great week.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi Linda Such a lovely looking covered bridge. yes I have a GPS called Samantha and she is always getting mixed up as to directions!! I got her because I have NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO sense of direction but now I am wondering!!!! AS I have oined your site, I had ot seen the previous post. That certainly was a fun evening of dinner on the brisge. What does traffic do that evening?? I would not ant a truck for dessert!!

    ReplyDelete
  3. oh, i could not imagine going across it in a semi! eek!!! glad they could salvage it! looks great!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Wow--they did a great job of restoring that bridge... Can't believe a semi would ever even attempt to go through that bridge... Unbelievable. our GPS will lead us many different ways---but we humans need to also use 'good sense'...

    Love covered bridges... Glad they put up a barrier this time --for nuts like that guy!!!!! ha

    Hugs,
    Betsy

    ReplyDelete
  5. I'm glad they were able to restore this bridge -- it's beautiful. I hope the new warning barriers prevent another incident of a too-big vehicle trying to use the bridge.

    ReplyDelete
  6. A barrier is a wise precaution to protect such a treasure.

    ReplyDelete
  7. The final project looks lovely. Let's hope that vehicles too large for this bridge will now heed the warnings.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Great post and photos, Linda. I just love old covered bridges.

    ReplyDelete
  9. It's very difficult for me to believe that a semi-truck driver was stupid enough to attempt to cross through this bridge. You've got to wonder!

    ReplyDelete
  10. These covered bridges look very special, Linda, this is a nice one. I just can't understand why the driver of the semi went through the bridge, he must have seen something was wrong! It's a great piece of news though that the bridge has been restored and precautions against similar recklessness were taken.

    The dinner on the bridge must have been fun. :)

    ReplyDelete
  11. What a clever way to protect this beauty. It's a shane that beamed barriers are such eyesores but better there than right at the bridge and far better than damaging it.

    ReplyDelete