While this approach occasionally causes me to get lost, it often reveals a new roadside item of interest.
And it did this time too. While zipping north on Quarry Road, I happened to notice an interesting bridge on Garfield Road. It was just west of the intersection.
Of course, I had to pull over for a better look, and was rewarded with this view (below).
The southern side of the bridge (below) has the year 1883 inscribed in it.
The bridge is listed on Bridgehunter.com, and is identified as an 1883 arch bridge over Beaver Creek on TR18.
I’m impressed that the charming bridge has not been replaced.
For an excellent article on the Structure magazine website that examines the challenges of evaluating and preserving historic stone arch bridges, click here.
That one reminds me of the sandstone arch bridge that was over Beaver Creek on West Martin in Amherst. It was also built in the 1880s if I remember correctly, and had the date on the keystone. I grew up visiting that spot on the creek looking for minnows, tadpoles, and frogs, and exploring the woods nearby. It was a beautiful bridge. I think one of the reasons it was replaced was because it was narrow and at a sharp turn in the road. The stone arch bridge over Beaver Creek on Milan Avenue still exists and can be easily seen from the park on the north side of the road.
ReplyDeleteI remember the old bridge over Beaver Creek on West Martin well. As Drew stated, the bridge was narrow and had a rather sharp curve which made it dangerous when approaching it in a car. As the west side of Amherst was developed in the 1960s the increased traffic on the bridge became a real hazard. The west approach to the bridge was also much steeper than currently. When I was delivering newspapers for the Lorain Journal in the 1950s, East and West Martin Street were on my route. At that time my last delivery on West Martin was a single house just over the bridge on the south side of the road. There were no other houses for some distance. The single delivery was a pain because the delivery of a single paper necessitated a though bicycle ascent of the rather steep hill back over the bridge while carrying a bag of papers. The new bridge softened the curve and lowered the western slope of the bridge, but the ascetics of the old sandstone bridge were lost.
ReplyDeleteThis bridge was built 2 years after the western outlaw "Billy The Kid" was killed.A true piece of Americana.....If this bridge was in the city of Lorain it would've been demolished already.
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