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.

Sawyer Bridge AKA "Bridge to Nowhere", Hillsborough, NH

Sawyer Bridge

The stone arch bridge in Hillsborough, NH was the subject of a blistering stump speech by presidential candidate Mitt Romney, who asked how $180,000 of stimulus money was spent on a bridge that connects to no road and carries no traffic.

Bridge, in the news, in driving range -- I headed right up to get a look for myself at this "bridge to nowhere".

It's a nice enough bridge. Recently maintained, with a railing around it so you can walk around on top of it without falling into the Contoocook River, which it crosses. The Hillsborough folks say they were thinking of building a park around it, but it's certainly not in the center of anywhere.

Signs on either side of it tell the history of the bridge:

Stone Arch Bridges

Beginning in the 1830s, a few arched granite

highway bridges were built in southern New

Hampshire under the supervision of engineers

from major manufacturing centers. By the 1850s,

rural stonemasons had mastered the art of

building such bridges without mortar. Hiram

Monroe (1799-1871), active in town affairs,

persuaded Hillsborough to build a dozen. Five

survive, and a sixth is covered by Franklin

Pierce Lake. Among the local builders were

Reuben E. Loveren (1817-1883), and brothers

Calvin A. Gould (1826-1877) and James H. Gould

(1828-1890). All three worked on this, the

double-arched Sawyer Bridge, in 1866.

I'm wondering where the other four surviving stone bridges are...  It's interesting that the sign mentions that stonemasons had mastered the art of building stone bridges without mortar, while the Sawyer Bridge clearly uses a ton of mortar. Perhaps that was put in during the renovation.

According to Gilman Shattuck, historic bridges like the Sawyer Bridge are important reminders of our past.

Mr. Shattuck, a former member of the New Hampshire House of Representatives and a Democrat, also happened to be a contributor to a book of historical images of city. He wrote the chapter on bridges. Sites like the Sawyer Bridge, he said, are important history landmarks that help out with the New Hampshire tourism industry.

“We’re talking sofa money, sofa change money,” Mr. Shattuck said of the stimulus dollars funneled to the bridge. According to the Associated Press, the total amount of stimulus funding used to repair the bridge was $150,000.

Parking is pretty much anywhere. There are parking lots surrounding it. Not sure it's worth a special trip; I fit in five covered bridges and a trip to the New Hampshire seacoast along the way and that made it worthwhile to me.