Huckleberry Hill Bridge, Avon, CT

Huckleberry Hill Bridge

It's the last snow of the season, and the time is running out to get some covered bridge pictures before the last snow. The snows we have gotten this winter have either been so light to not make the trip worthwhile, or so heavy that I couldn't drive there safely.

Come the perfect storm -- so to speak -- Friday. The heavy, wet snow had made us work from home, but the weather Saturday -- today -- would be so warm that traveling wouldn't be an issue. I only needed to find a bridge to get to before the snow melted, given I had to work in the morning.

I've found a map that collects together all the covered bridges in New England, state by state. The closest covered bridge that I haven't already been to, was this pedestrian bridge in Avon.

The Huckleberry Hill Bridge in Countryside Park was built in 1968 to cross the man-made pond and waterfall. At least one site claims it is a Town truss bridge, and I can see how they got that impression, because of the non-structural lattice. A look inside the portal clears it up, it's a Pratt truss bridge.

I haven't posted since September; I have some bridges on deck that I wasn't terribly happy with, but will post. This year, though -- I'm gonna abuse the heck out of that covered bridge map.

Braga Bridge, Fall River-Somerset, MA

Charles M. Braga Jr Bridge

My group at work changed floors; now we're located with the business folks (for whom we're the IT department), and I get to listen to the business folk talk about the business. And one mentioned the Braga Bridge.

My ears perked up, as they always do when bridges are the topic. But especially the Braga Bridge -- I knew that bridge. I had a picture of that bridge.

I got this picture on my way between two other bridges, neither of which I have written about. Because the pictures weren't great, the light was wrong... as they are with this bridge, the Braga Bridge, about which a haiku contest was run:

Six-lane thoroughfare; 

Minus two lanes of repair;

Four lanes of despair. 

— Jay Martineau, Westport

I grew up not terribly far from here, and some school trip or other got us visiting the Battleship Massachusetts, which is permanently docked on the Fall River side of the bridge (you can see it there, though the battleship gray blends in so perfectly with the water and the background that it's almost like it was designed to...)

Bizarrely, I don't remember this bridge from when I was a kid. I have no explanation.

Replica of the Iwo Jima Memorial

I shot the bridge from a really beautiful park along the Taunton River just up from the bridge and just below a rather ordinary bridge that I couldn't get any sort of picture of. The park is dominated by a replica of the Iwo Jima Memorial. I had no idea it was there. I love most being surprised by the things I find when I'm bridge hunting.

Brayton Point Power Plant

Across the river from the park is the Brayton Point Power Plant, which I assumed to be nuclear, but is actually a coal powered generating station.

The Braga Bridge is much longer than I show in the picture, but it's hard to get the entire bridge in a shot, and stitching all the pictures together doesn't look cool. It's all a deck truss bridge up until this Warren truss bit on the Fall River side... so in your imagination, draw an endless line to the right. The whole bridge is over a mile long.

I was going to head down to the USS Massachusetts and try to get a more oblique shot of the bridge... but then I noticed something in the distance behind the Braga Bridge.

OMG... what bridge is THAT?

THAT... is the Mount Hope Bridge in Bristol, Rhode Island. And it instantly became the next stop on my hunt.

What was the first stop? The reason for the trip in the first place?

It was a viaduct about which Wikipedia had said was almost impossible to photograph without trespassing. I took that challenge. Someday I'll let you see how it turned out.

Railroad Bridge, Fredericksburg, VA

Railroad bridge across the Rappahannock River

I stopped in historic Fredericksburg, Virginia, on my way to visit my son this past weekend. Traffic along I-95 made it dark before I got to town, so I made sure to rise with the sun the next morning in search of the fanous Rappahannock River railroad bridge.

It's a concrete, eight (or so) span open spandrel arch bridge. The bridge is in active use by cargo and passenger trains; there is a beautiful Amtrak station just a block west of the bridge. It's a wonderful river crossing in its on right, but this is not the bridge that made Fredericksburg famous.

This bridge is very near the former site of an earlier bridge -- a bridge that was instrumental in one of the most one-sided battles in the Civil War.

Mural of the bridge on a Fredericksburg wall

In December of 1862, Union forces, desperate for a victory, were looking for a victory against Confederate forces entrenched in and around Fredericksburg. Blocked by the Rappahannock River, a tributary of the Potomac River, the two sides stared at each other until the Union Army could deliver sufficient pontoon bridge segments to build a bridge across the river -- which the army proceeded to do, under continual fire from the Confederates.

The pontoon bridges prior to the Battle of Fredericksburg (ca 1862)

The Union army, encamped on the east side of the river very near George Washington's boyhood home, crossed the pontoon bridges, taking heavy losses, and entered into close combat with the Confederates among the streets and homes of Fredericksburg, eventually making a concerted effort to break the fortified lines on Marye's Heights.

They failed and were forced to withdraw. Union losses were twice those of the Confederates, a bitter loss that shook the North's already fragile support for Lincoln's War.

A riverboat idles at Fredericksburg's City Dock as geese fly overhead

Fredericksburg today is an arts center for the area and home to the University of Mary Washington. It has a thriving night life and is extremely bicycle-friendly -- many of the city streets encourage bicyclists to use the entire right lane.

It also sports the second largest mall on the East Coast, the Central Park Mall, which makes travel on the outskirts of the city problematic during shopping hours.

Bridge from the pumping station

Beautiful bridge, beautiful city.

Providence River Bridge -- at night!

Providence River Bridge

I'm back!

My car tires were about to dissolve into the road unless I got them replaced, so until I could save up enough money for a new set, I haven't been going much of anywhere for the last month or so. But a dear friend was flying from Texas to Rhode Island for a conference, and I wasn't going to get to Providence on a bicycle.

After dinner, I was able to coerce him to come with me bridge hunting. I've taken pictures of the Providence River Bridge before, but... never at night.

Lit up, the bridge sparkles like a jewel on Providence's waterfront. It's so bright that local astronomers insisted it be turned off at 11PM so that the stars could be seen.

The Providence River Bridge, the widest network lattice arch bridge in the world, was built at a warehouse about fifteen miles down Narragansett Bay and transported up-river to its current spot. This move was the subject of the History Channel documentary, "Mega Movers: Really Big Bridges". Since I last wrote of this bridge in July, I've had a chance to watch this documentary. It's pretty incredible.

To move the bridge, they first had to construct four giant winches to lift the bridge onto specially constructed trucks with over a hundred wheels between them, that, incredibly slowly, inched the bridge onto two barges that were connected by steel bracing. These barges were then pushed by tugboats up the bay to Providence. Any misalignment would send the bridge into the bay.

Total professionals they were; the bridge made it without incident.

Thompson Covered Bridge, West Swanzey, NH

West Swanzey / Thompson Covered Bridge

Sorry about the reflections. I wasn't using a lens hood and this is what happens.

The West Swanzey Covered Bridge, AKA the Thompson Bridge, was built in 1832 by Zadoc Taft for the princely sum of $523.27. Zadoc isn't a name you see every day. He's not even the most famous Zadoc Taft -- that honor goes to renowned sculptor Lorado Zadoc Taft.

Our Zadoc Taft, though, was a local boy, born, raised and died in the area. The Register of Historical Places entry for this bridge lists Taft as a master workman, but by the 1850 census, he called himself a blacksmith. Further information about Z. Taft isn't easily found; there was a Revolutionary War soldier by that name who lived in southern Massachusetts near where I grew up, apparently unrelated, and another around the same time who ran a mill in Bennington, Vermont, where my sister went to college. That could conceivably be the same person, as Richmond and Bennington were probably within a few hours travel by train, but it seems unlikely.

The Thompson Covered Bridge crosses the Ashuelot River, connecting the town of Swanzey with the village of West Swanzey. It's a two span, 155 foot long, single web Town lattice bridge. The sides are open and use the beautiful Town lattice as a decorative element. There is a sidewalk on the south side of the bridge; there apparently was another on the north side when the bridge was built. It's not known to me what happened to it.

By the early 1970s, increasing traffic was taking a toll on the wooden bridge. Although there is now another bridge nearby to carry trucks, buses and other heavy traffic, in the 70s the weight limit was six tons. School buses would drop their kids off on one side of the bridge, drive to the other, and weight for the kids to cross the bridge, board the bus, and continue on its way. Currently, the bridge is signed for only three tons of traffic -- one car at a time on the bridge's single lane.

The Thompson Covered Bridge is #5 in the southern New Hampshire covered bridge registry. Of all the covered bridges I've seen here in New England, this is the most beautiful and best preserved. It looked substantially similar to this in 1832, 180 years ago. Zadoc Taft should be proud.

Ashton Viaduct, Cumberland-Lincoln, RI

The Ashton Viaduct crossing the Blackstone River

Usually a bridge like this has a lot of history behind it, but I can't even get a definite idea of its name. Some places call it the Ashton Bridge, some the Ashton Viaduct. I imagine it was associated with the nearby (like, if I turn to my right 90 degrees, it's right there) Ashton Village, which was once a thriving mill, so it must be at least a hundred years old, but... no information on how old it is.

I was biking on the Blackstone Valley Bikeway which stretches from Worcester, Massachusetts through to Cumberland, Rhode Island. I was just wanting to see how far I could get, maybe to where I grew up near Uxbridge, Mass., before we moved to New Hampshire. The Blackstone Valley was home.

Yeah, I knew the viaduct would be along the way, but still. I didn't come just for the bridge. Honestly.

The Ashton Mill

Told ya the mill was close.

Viaduct & bike bridge

The Ashton Viaduct is a five span open spandrel arch bridge crossing the Blackstone River, a river once called the most polluted river in the country with respect to toxic sediments, being used as it was as the industrial toilet for mills and factories from Worcester to Woonsocket. It is today still filled with pollutants. In that it shares a fate with the Housatonic River here in Connecticut -- enjoy at your own risk.

Neither river is likely to ever fully recover.

Not the Albion Bridge

Further along the bikeway, I found a pony truss bridge crossing the river. It looked in great condition, better than I'd ever seen one from the age of iron bridges. It didn't look to be one of the Berlin Iron Bridge Company's bridges -- most of theirs are lenticular.

Boston Bridge Works Builders

These bridges were built by the Boston Bridge Works... at least originally.

Turns out that Rhode Island  replaced the bridge, then bolted on parts of the old bridge so it would keep some of its old character. According to the contractor, Gordon R. Archibald Inc Civil Engineering,

To maintain the historic value of this river crossing, Gordon R. Archibald, Inc. developed the innovative concept of 'aesthetic rehabilitation.' Under this concept, the trusses were refurbished and placed astride a new, two-dimensional steel grid superstructure. The steel grid carries all of the new superstructure and vehicular loadings, leaving the trusses to carry only the weight of and loadings on the sidewalks. In this way, the reconstructed bridge can carry contemporary traffic loadings, while its 19th-century visual quality is preserved for future generations.

So I'm not sure how I feel about that. I guess it's good that they didn't just replace it with a slab of steel and concrete. They replaced it with a slab of steel and concrete and then put it in a dress.

Contoocook Railroad Bridge, Contoocook, NH

Contoocook Covered Bridge

The Contoocook Covered Bridge, crossing the Contoocook River in the Contoocook village part of Hopkinton, New Hampshire, bills itself as the "oldest surviving covered railroad bridge in the world". That's a lot of qualifications, but it's still an impressive piece of covered bridge history.

Constructed in 1889 on the piers of an earlier bridge, it was built at a time when New England was turning to iron bridges, such as those built by the famous Berlin Iron Bridge Company. Its relative newness could be responsible for its longevity, maybe.

This bridge was probably designed by the Boston & Maine Railroad engineer Jonathan Parker Snow and built by carpenter David Hazelton. The B&M railroad used wooden bridges long after most other railroads had moved to iron.

Tradition. It's New England!

Double Town lattice

The Contoocook covered railroad bridge sports a rather unique double Town lattice construction, with a second lattice bolted to the outside of the first. This probably helped take the weight of trains as they came through to the nearby depot. I have not seen that in any other covered bridge, but Wikipedia claims it wasn't uncommon in northern New England and a few other examples survive to this day.

This bridge was used as a working railroad bridge to 1962, weathering a number of disasters, including the 1938 hurricane that nearly wiped out Providence, Rhode Island. Between 1962 and 1990 it was used as a warehouse. In 2006, the National Society for the Preservation of Covered Bridges paid for some necessary upgrades, and in 2010 the NH Department of Transportation modernized the lighting and fire suppression system -- you can see the red fire alarm button midway down the bridge wall in the picture above.

Portal to Contoocook Covered Bridge

I used to live twenty miles from this bridge when I was a kid, but I didn't know it even existed until a couple weeks ago. Used to ride to Hopkinton on my bike a lot after they built this really nice bike path that follows Interstate 89 north. But it would have been being used as a warehouse back then, anyway. The pictures on the Library of Congress website (which is down at the moment, so no links) show it filled with junk. Now it stands as the centerpiece and symbol of Contoocook village.

The bridge isn't hard to get to; if you're anywhere in the Concord, NH area, get to I-89, go north to route 127 and follow the road into Contoocook. There is parking available both at the adjoining depot and a restaurant on the other end of the bridge.