BEDFORD - Preserving the 14 covered bridges in Bedford County is a difficult task essential to the continued tourism of the area as well as a modern-day reprieve into slower and simpler times.
Preservation isn't easy, said Joyce Soroka, president of the Theodore Burr Covered Bridge Society of Pennsylvania, a nonprofit organization that works to maintain the bridges across the state. There is limited funding for covered bridges, Soroka said, and high price tags to repair them.
In recent years, an increase in destruction, ranging from graffiti to arson, has destroyed some bridges, such as the McDaniels Bridge formerly in East Providence Township, which was set on fire on Easter Sunday in 1988 and never rebuilt.
The Ryot Bridge on Bowser Road near Fishertown was burned in an arson fire almost immediately after a rehabilitation in 2002 but has been repaired.
Some counties, including Bedford, are adding surveillance equipment and fire-resistant paint to bridge projects.
"We need people to take an interest in preserving them," Soroka said. "It takes communities appreciating having a covered bridge in their area. As long as the communities appreciate it, I've seen where they can get covered bridges repaired."
Commitment to restoration
The Herline Bridge, for example, the county's longest covered bridge, was closed for more than 10 years before a refurbishment in 1996 for the now drivable span near routes 30 and 31 outside of Bedford.
"The community banded together and said, 'We want this bridge reopened,'" Soroka, a former Bedford County resident, said. "It just takes a lot of people's interest."
P. Joseph Lehman Consulting Engineers of Hollidaysburg has been Bedford County's engineering firm for more than 40 years and done rehabilitation on several of the county's covered bridges, including Jackson's Mill Bridge near Breezewood and Hewitt Bridge in the southern part of the county.
State and federal money, although limited, is often available for county-owned bridges. A lot of the problem lies in the bridges that are privately owned, Marty Malone, director of client services with P. Joseph Lehman, said.
"When they're privately owned, the money isn't available," he said. "As a result, they're not usually as well-maintained as others."
Of the five privately owned covered bridges in Bedford County, two are drivable - Palo Alto Bridge south of Hyndman and Claycomb Bridge at the entrance of Old Bedford Village on Business Route 220.
With the assistance of about $600,000 in federal funding, the Claycomb Bridge rehabilitation project, included relocating the bridge from its former home in Reynoldsdale, and a major face-lift in 2004.
Lehman engineer Aaron Craig said safety is a big issue with most covered bridges, originally built to handle horses and buggies, not SUVs, pickup trucks and in the case of the Claycomb Bridge, tour buses.
"Bedford County has done a pretty good job in recent years recognizing the importance of maintaining them and trying to preserve the history," Craig said.
Preserving and repairing the bridges to accommodate modern-day needs and safety requirements while still keeping their appearance similar to that of the mid- and late-1800s is a process Lehman officials have carefully considered in their building projects across the state.
The Claycomb Bridge project was a "major rehabilitation," Craig said, as structural issues required that steel beams be installed underneath the structure.
Using 21st-century equipment as opposed to hand tools used in the original construction of these bridges, the company was able to keep the steel beams pretty much hidden from view.
"From the top, it looks just like it used to," Craig said. "It maintains its historical relevance. It's a win-win for everyone."
Not all the same
The bridges and their stories are as varied as the towns in Bedford County. Many of the structures have a pull-off area near them for easy access for camera-toting tourists. The bridges, with water swirling peacefully below, come in natural, white and red colors and vary in length from the 56-foot-long Palo Alto Bridge over Gladdens Run south of Hyndman to the 136-foot-long Herline Bridge.
Everyone has a favorite, too.
Soroka said in all her travels to covered bridges in several states and throughout Canada, she still reminisces about the former McDaniels Bridge.
"McDaniels was my favorite," Soroka said. "I was always hopeful it would get rebuilt."
For Bedford County Visitors Bureau Executive Director Dennis Tice, the difficult choice is narrowed down to the Dr. Knisely Bridge.
"Knisely Bridge is one of my favorites," Tice said of the privately owned, non-drivable Dunnings Creek span near Pleasantville. "It just provides some really nice photographic settings with lots of trees."
The Dr. Knisely Bridge is one of several bridges that are located close together in the northwestern part of the county, along with Ryot, Snook's, Cuppett's and Bowser's bridges. The Knisely Bridge was built on what was the main road at the time. When the road was rerouted, the bridge was abandoned and is now a stop just off Route 56.
"They represent a slower pace," Tice said. "You just always slow down when you go past one. It's a visible representation of a simpler time."
Others in the state
While Bedford County is not the only Pennsylvania county to boast the bridges, it features more of them than all but Lancaster and Columbia counties, which each boast more than 20.
The Pennsylvania Dutch Country Visitors Center in Lancaster County offers five driving tours of its more than two dozen covered bridges, including restaurants, shops, historic and Amish attractions along the way. According to the visitors center, about 11 million people visited Lancaster County in 2007, spending $1.8 billion on services in that area.
Joel Cliff, media relations manager with the Pennsylvania Dutch Country Visitors Bureau, said the idyllic, romantic setting of the area's 27 "kissing bridges" is one of the things tourists have come to expect from Lancaster County.
"When you have that kind of imagery, you want to make sure you preserve it," Cliff said. "Once you lose those things, it's extremely hard to bring them back."
Cliff said the surrounding communities, many of which are visited on the recommended driving tours, are proud of their bridges, and county leaders work hard to preserve them.
In the aftermath of Hurricane Agnes in 1972, Pinetown Bridge - which had been washed off its concrete support and moved more than a mile away - was disassembled and completely rebuilt on its original location by local Amish workers. It still stands there today.
"That exemplifies the community understanding of that value of your heritage and how it attracts people here," Cliff said. "They come for things like that."
From functional to tourism
The number of covered bridges in Pennsylvania - which has more covered bridges than any other state - has fallen from more than 1,500 at its peak in the 1800s to about 200 now.
Many bridges were originally built to connect workers to mills, such as the Jackson's Mill and Felten's Mill bridges in Bedford County. Their covering helped to protect the structures from the weather.
Most of Bedford County's covered bridges are county-owned and drivable, in part thanks to the work of several boards of county commissioners, Tice said.
"Our county commissioners have done a remarkable job of keeping them up," he said. "That's really admirable. They're really far-sighted. The bridges are still usable. It's still a functional item."
Soroka noted that counties with covered bridges need their commissioners to take an interest in their preservation and their understanding in the role in tourism.
Visitors to the bridges likely will eat in area restaurants, shop in local stores and stay in area hotels, she said.
While Somerset County still has a few covered bridges and Huntingdon County has one, neither Blair nor Cambria have any remaining, Malone said.
"The county knows the covered bridges account for a lot of tourism in the county," Malone said. "I think there's a romantic aspect to them. That's kind of appealing to some people."
The Bedford County Visitors Bureau offers several brochures with pictures and locations of the various bridges. Featured as part of the annual Visitors Guide is a combined 90-minute driving tour of Gravity Hill and eight of the bridges that are located close together.
"That is our most popular driving tour," Tice said. "It's very simple. It'd be practically impossible to get lost."
He said the bit of nostalgia associated with the bridges is "one of the big initial contact points for tourism" in the county.
"There are a lot of people that tour around just to look at bridges," he said. "There are all sorts of people that come to see them, from as far away as California."
Mirror Staff Writer Wendy Zook is at 946-7520.
