Tuesday, October 23, 2012

They're Not Making Any New Ones

Indiana usually ranks fourth in lists of states with the most covered bridges and we have fewer than a hundred -- working on one fewer still, after a tractor-trailer driver decided to try one on for size up in DeKalb county last month.  (Spencerville Covered Bridge, clearance very clearly posted.)

     Repair it?  And wait for the next modern-highway-sized load to come along?  Nope; looks like it's going to moved and become a pedestrian bridge, one more piece of history off the job and put under glass.  Beats losing it alogether -- but not by much.

     A lot of history plain sucks.  Some parts didn't.  We should refrain from tossing the good parts out with the bad. 

     (Post title takes some poetic license: they did build a new one a few years ago, a nice Burr Arch, at the Indiana State Fairgrounds.  But it's more of a functional showpiece.) 

4 comments:

  1. Idiot driver.
    One of our three covered bridges has been moved that way, only it isn't even part of a trail, just shifted off the road alignment. It always looks weird to me, sort of floating there, since it is perfectly clear that the modern and historic alignments are a hundred feet away.
    on the other hand it makes casually studying its structure much easier!

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  2. Well, if he was dragging the standard trailer, he was good for anything over 13ft6inches....close but no cigar..

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  3. A dump truck took out a covered bridge near our farm when I lived in Ohio. I like to think it was a conspiracy by the trucking companies to get rid of a low capacity bridge and replace it with a modern one, but it was probably just a spaced out truck driver.

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  4. Beg'n the Captain's pardon, but they did in fact just build a beautiful brandy spanking new wooden covered bridge on a main road in Pepperell MA. Opened this last spring in point of fact. I've altered my route to the flea market to include driving over (through?) the bridge.

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