Dauphin County’s last remaining covered bridge was partially deteriorated due to the normal wear and tear of time and damage caused by an arsonist’s fire when county officials asked Herbert, Rowland & Grubic, Inc. (HRG) to restore the bridge.
At this time, many of the bridge’s timber members had rotted or had been damaged by insects. Additionally, numerous alterations over the years had left different sections of the bridge in various states of disarray. For example, a number of members had been inadequately splice-repaired, and the bottom lateral bracing system had been removed to install supplemental floorbeams in the deck system (while other rotted floor beams remained). In addition, the roof system was asymmetrical due to prior modification to only half of the bridge.
HRG designed several rehabilitation measures for the bridge, including:
- Replacement of damaged arch/truss members
- Replacement of previously spliced members with new full-length members
- Replacement of the floor system with a new floorbeam/stringer/plank deck system
- Replacement of the bottom lateral bracing that was removed in prior floor system modifications
- Replacement of the roof system
- Replacement of damaged exterior siding
- Repainting of the structure
To accomplish these repairs, the design required contractors to disassemble the current bridge, which had been listed on the National Register of Historic Places since 1978, and reconstruct it using as much of the original, undamaged material as possible. The design also included a special effort to select new materials for the bridge that coordinated with its original historic appearance.
