Mirror file photo Blair County’s highway department demolished the pedestrian swinging bridge in the Lower Reese area of Frankstown Township earlier this month. While nearby residents were upset the bridge was torn down, it was deemed a safety hazard and a liability to the county.

FRANKSTOWN — The pedestrian swinging bridge in the Lower Reese area of Frankstown Township, a piece of Blair County’s history that used to be an escape route for a rising river, is gone.

Blair County’s highway department demolished the structure earlier this month without public notice.

“We said it was going to come down,” said Commissioner Ted Beam Jr., who announced completion of the task at last week’s commissioners meeting. “And it had to come down. It was a liability.”

Those who live near the bridge in Lower Reese saw county crews take about two days to remove the structure. It was the end of an era for a piece of transportation that for decades spanned the Frankstown Branch of the Little Juniata River

“They just came in and did it,” said Connie Westover, who lives nearby. “It’s all smoothed over now and you can’t see that anything was ever there.”

The county closed the swinging bridge to pedestrians in June 2015 after a report by Keller Engineers identified structural deficiencies deemed as safety hazards.

Commissioners subsequently heard nearby residents and their extended family members ask for a replacement bridge. After commissioners deemed that option as too expensive, they allowed some time for those interested in the bridge to pursue their own options.

Jo Braithwaite of Harrisburg, whose great-grandmother, Mary C. Westover, had convinced county commissioners in 1983 to keep the bridge intact for pedestrian use while outlawing motorcycle use, recently posted a tearful message on Facebook about the failed effort.

“I am sick to my stomach that we were not able to save it,” Braithwaite said. “As I said before, she was more than a bridge. She was a beautiful piece of this area’s history.”

A history of the pedestrian swinging bridge, sometimes referred to as the Gromiller Bridge, compiled by the Rev. Miles “Mike” Westover indicated that the bridge was built in the 1920s, rebuilt after being flooded in 1936, then renovated in the 1950s. But the bridge may have been built as early as 1861 based on a history presented to county commissioners when they considered their 1983 action.

The Westover history indicates that the bridge was used by ancestors seeking access to the village side of their community and to catch the train heading for Hollidaysburg. While cars could be driven across the river when the water was low, the bridge was referred to as the escape route when the river waters were rising.

Today, there are paved roads on both sides of the river, but local residents were fond of the bridge as a reminder of the past.

Diane Snavely Cox said her family reunion was held just days before the county crews moved in to demolish the structure. She said they knew it was going to be torn down, but they didn’t know when.

“There were a lot of tears shed over it,” she said.

Lula Westover Snavely said she was saddened by the county’s actions but knew the day was coming.

“It was all pre-determined.” she said. “They knew what they were going to do.”

As a child Snavely, now 85, said she went back and forth regularly on the pedestrian bridge to get to school, to church and to pick up the mail because her family’s mailbox was on the other side.

A report on the bridge’s condition identified the cost of a stable replacement bridge at $660,000. That same report also pegged demolition at $111,000, a cost the county avoided by assigning its highway crew to handle the job.

On the Facebook page created to seek support from others to help save the swinging pedestrian bridge from demolition — a page that attracted almost 2,000 followers — Braithwaite said she knows she’s not the only one with a broken heart.

“We have the memories,” she said.

Mirror Staff Writer Kay Stephens is at 946-7456.