Historic Bridge in Washington State Available/ Catch: State Will Pay for the Costs. Any Takers?

Photo taken by K.A. Erickson in 2009 before it was replaced.

Washington DOT (WSDOT) will pay up to $1 million for the dismantling, transporting and reassembling of the 1925 through truss bridge to be reused for any purpose.

TACOMA, WS-  Sometimes historic bridges get into the way of progress and need to be replaced. This is especially true with bridges whose height, width and weight restrictions hamper the ability to get trucks and other means of transportation across.  However, before they are removed, states are required to put them up for sale so that third parties can claim them and relocate them the way they see fit. In general, the bridge program has had a mix of successes and failures in selling off their historic assets, for on the one hand, third parties wishing to purchase the historic bridge for use are shirked away by the cost for transportation and reassembly. Furthermore bridges marketed by the department of transportation are often too big or in the case of arch, beam and suspension bridges, too entrenched or too fragile to relocate. On the other hand, however, one will see in each state a success story of a historic bridge that was given to a third party. This is especially true with truss bridges as they are easily taken apart, transported to a new location in segments and reassembled. One will see an example in every state, yet Indiana, Texas, Iowa, Ohio and Minnesota have multiple examples of success stories. Even some stone arch bridges have been relocated to new sites where they still serve their purpose.

However, there is one state department of transportation that is going the extra mile to sell their historic bridge by even paying for the relocation and reassembly of the historic bridge. Between now and 2019, the Washington Department of Transportation (WSDOT) can sell you this historic through truss bridge:

According to the information by the WSDOT and bridgehunter.com, this historic bridge was built in 1925 and used to cross the Puyallup River at State Highway 167 (Meridan Street) in Puyallup, located seven miles east of Tacoma, until it was replaced in 2011 by a modern crossing. It was then relocated on land, where it has been waiting for its new owner ever since. Washington has got a wide array of historic bridges, whose unique design makes it appealing for tourists. They have the Tacoma Narrows Bridge (with its name Galloping Gertie), the , the world’s only concrete pony truss bridge,  and a housed through truss bridge made of wood in Whitman County that was once a railroad crossing, just to name a few.  The Puyallup Bridge is a riveted Turner through truss bridge, a hybrid Warren truss design that features subdivided chords and A-framed panels. After the demolition of the Liberty Memorial Bridge in Bismarck, ND in 2009, this bridge is the last of its kind and one of two of its design left in the world- the other is a Turner pony truss crossing in the German city of Chemnitz. Normally, going by the standard marketing policy, the historic bridge is marketed first before it is replaced and then taken down if no one wants it. However, looking at that tactic done by many state DOTs, this has not allowed much time for third parties to step forward and save it, especially because of the costs involved. For some bridges, like the Champ-Clark Truss Bridge, spanning the Mississippi River at the Missouri-Illinois border, there was almost no information about the bridge being up for sale as well as a very small time window of three months, thus providing no interest for at least one of the spans. According to MoDOT representatives in an interview with the Chronicles a couple months ago, the spans now belong to the same contractor building the replacement, who in turn will remove the spans when the new bridge opens in 2019.

The Pullayup Bridge is different because of its large size and rare design, which goes along with the history of its construction. It was built in 1925 by Maury Morton Caldwell, a bridge engineer who had established his mark for the Seattle-Tacoma area. This event was important for its completion came at the heels of the introduction of the US Highway System a year later. Born in Waynesboro, Virginia in 1875, Caldwell moved to the Seattle area in 1904. He worked as a civil engineer for the City of Tacoma from 1910 to 1916 before starting his own engineering business. Prior to the construction of this bridge in 1925, Caldwell had been responsible for the construction of the Carbon River Bridge in 1921, the Pasco-Kennewick Bridge in 1922 and the Wiskah River Drawbridge in Aberdeen in 1925.  Yet the 371-foot long Pullayup Bridge proved to be one of his masterpieces that he built in 1925, thus leaving an important mark on his legacy of bridge building in the Seattle-Tacoma metropolitan area. It is unknown how many other bridges were credited to his name, but from the historic research conducted by WSDOT, he was never a licensed professional engineer for Washington State and only practiced the profession for the Seattle-Tacoma area, which means the highly likelihood of more bridges having been designed by Caldwell and located strictly in north and western Washington and possibly British Columbia. He died in 1942, having been survived by his wife, Amy, whom he married in 1915, and his sister Nettle, who resided in Virginia state.

The Pullayup Bridge is being offered to those interested by WSDOT between now and 2019. The catch to this is the DOT will pay for the dismantling, relocation and reassembling costs- up to $1 million for the whole process. The only cost that the party may have to pay is for the abutments and possibly the road approaching it. The deal provided by WSDOT is a great steal for those wishing to have a unique historic bridge for reuse as a park or bike trail crossing. Even the thought of using it as a monument describing the history of the bridge, bridge engineering and M.M. Caldwell is realistic. Some parties who have called up wished to convert it into a house, similar to one of the reused spans of the now demolished eastern half of the San Fransisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, which had been built in 1936 and was replaced with a cable-stayed span in 2013.  The main slogan is if you have an idea for the bridge, WSDOT can pay for it, and you can make your dream a reality. With many successful projects, stemming from creating historic bridge parks in Iowa, Michigan and coming soon to Delaware (where historic bridges were imported from other regions) to numerous bridges along the bike trails throughout the US, Europe and elsewhere, this deal to have the bridge for free, with a transportation agency having to pay for the relocation and reerection at its new home, is something that one cannot really afford to miss out on.

If you are interested in this unique historic bridge, please contact Steve Fuchs at WSDOT, using this link, which will also provide you with more information on this structure. The agency is also looking for more information on M.M. Caldwell and other bridges that he may have designed and contributed to construction. If you know of other bridges built by this local engineer, please contact Craig Holstine, using the following contact details:  holstic@wsdot.wa.gov or by phone: 360-570-6639.

Advertisements

Mystery Bridge Nr. 87: A Bridge with an Unusual Railing and Plaque

 

Our 87th mystery bridge takes us down to Saxony again and to the town of Eibenstock. Located 13 kilometers southwest of Schneeberg and 22 kilometers west of Aue, this community of 7,000 inhabitants feature not only one but thirteen different sections that had once been villages, all located within a 122.2 squared kilometers from each other, meaning approximately 68 people per square km. At at a height of 650 meters above sea level, Eibenstock is one of the highest communities in the Erzgebirge (Ore Mountain region). Founded 862 years ago, the community was one of the main centers for nickel and copper mining in the region. Much of the architecture from the 17th and 18th Centuries have remained in tact, including the churches, the Post Mile and the historic town center. There, one can find mini fairy tale huts with scenes from over a dozen stories. The town is located south of the Eibenstock Reservoir, an artificial lake that was created with the Dam, built in 1984 to control the flow of water from the Zwickauer Mulde River. Prior to that, the river valley was one of the deepest in Saxony and one that required both a railway line from Chemnitz and Aue but also a steep cable-line car to Eibenstock, once the steepest in eastern Germany. Both gave way to progress with the dam and reservoir. But even the lake provides some boating, fishing and hiking opportunities in the summer time, a complement to its traditional skiing and winter amusement area between the lake and the community.

One of several Stone arch bridges in Eibenstock. This one is at Haberleithe and Bachstrasse

 

And while the Zwickauer Mulde flows past the town of Eibenstock through the lake bearing its name, two creeks flow through the town, merging at the town square at the corner of the town’s elementary school: the Dönitzbach and the Rähmerbach. From there, the newly merged Rähmerbach flows quickly down the steep valley and empties into the Reservoir, only two kilometers away.  Several arch bridges cross the two creeks in Eibenstock- the classical stone arch bridge as well as modern arch bridges whose decking and railings curve upwards. With each span having a length of 5-10 meters, it is easy to overlook them because they are typical structures a person could even jump over. However, one cannot overlook this structure:

It is a short beam bridge with a length of 9-10 meters and 8 meters wide. It spans the Dönitzbach carrying Bürgermeister Hesse Strasse at the market square on the opposite end of the elementary school, where Winklerstrasse meets.  While one may look at it as just a short bridge, the uniqueness comes with the railing on the side facing the market square.  There, we have a curved railing with vertical ends, all made using sandstone brick. At the center of the span, the top portion makes a U-shaped dip deep enough to include an iron shield. Curved and ornamental, the shield represents the symbol of luck, featuring a long rake in the middle, a three-leaf clover on the left and a miner’s chisel on the right. One can assume that given Eibenstock’s location in the Erzgebirge, the shield goes by the slogan “Glück Auf!” which means either “Good luck!” or even “Hello!” in German. In fact, the Erzgebirge Region has three characteristics that make it special: woodwork, mining and farming. When visiting the Christmas market in Germany and visiting the booth selling products from the Region, be it a lighted Christmas arch (Lichterbogen), Christmas Pyramid or any wooden products as well as metal bracelets and figures, one will see how they are handmade, going from forest or mines through the whole process into the fine product to be given to your loved one for the Holidays.

Close-up of the iron shield with the markings typical of the Region. Any ideas how old this is?

 

But going back to the mystery bridge, the structure appears to have been built most recently, going back no more than 10 years, and the railing and iron shield stemmed from the structure the present bridge replaced. This can be seen, especially with the shield, as it has shown some wear and tear over the years with rust and corrosion appearing especially on the back side. The question is what did the previous bridge look like? Did it look like the stone arches that still exist in Eibenstock? When was it built and if the shield was part of the original structure, since when, and who designed it?

 

If you have any answers, then we’ll be happy to take them. Just drop a line and we’ll update this bridge until the mystery bridge is solved.

For those who want an Impression of the German Christmas market from the author, you should check out the sister column, The Flensburg Files and its tour guide page. There, you can find the places the author has visited, including those in the Erzgebirge and Saxony to date. This Season’s tour continues in the Erzgebirge and includes some Holiday stories of Christmas’ past. Click on the link to the Tour Guide page and here for details on the Holiday stories that are being collected.

 

Springfield Bowstring Arch Bridge Restored- To be Part of Local Park Trail

Springfield Bridge at sunset. Unless noted, photos taken by Workin Bridges and BACH Steel for press release use.

Historic Bowstring Arch Bridge Restored after a nearly one-year project to relocate the structure to a city park. Dedication ceremony on 23 September in Conway.

CONWAY, ARKANSAS- Bridge crews and preservationists are celebrating the rebirth of one of the oldest surviving historic bridges in Arkansas. The Springfield Bowstring Arch Bridge is back in use after a record-breaking stint, which featured the disassembling, relocation, restoration and rassembling of the 1871 structure, a product of the King Bridge Company of Cleveland, Ohio, all within a span of ca. nine months! Usually, such projects last between 1-2 years, pending on the truss type, length and width and the way it should be restored. For other bridges, such as arches, suspension bridges and viaduct, it may take up to five years, pending on how it is restored.  The Springfield Bridge, with its main span of 146 feet and a width of 12 feet, is one of the longest of its kind built by King that is left. However when looking back at the bridge before its relocation from the Faulkner-Conway county line to Conway City in November 2016, it presented a totally different picture- a rather sad one when looking at it through the lens of Julie Bowers of Workin Bridges and Nels Raynor of BACH Steel.

Springfield Bridge before its relocation. Photo taken by Julie Bowers

Workin’ Bridges is a non  profit organization based in Grinnell, Iowa that is dedicated to historic bridge preservation, and Bach Structural and Oranmental Steel (BACH Steel) of Holt, Michigan. Six years after the completion of a study by Raynor and Bowers , the historic bridge restoration project was successfully completed. The success was due to a rare collaboration between the City of Conway, Faulkner County, and Dr. Ken Barnes of the Faulkner County Historical Society who was essential in the writing and successful grant application and petitioning the City of Conway to find a place to move the bridge. Permission to move was granted by the National Park Service for this structure that is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. A dedication to the restoration and future of this iron bowstring will be held Saturday, September 23rd at 10:00 am  at Beaverfork Lake Park in Conway, Arkansas.

The iron truss was fabricated in 1871 and erected in 1874 over E. Cadron Creek between Faulkner and Conway Counties as the first and oldest highway bridge built for farm to market requirements by the Arkansas Department of Transportation. The bridge restoration was funded by City of Conway tourism dollars used for parks, Faulkner County equipment, expertise and  funds for the extra crane, with the help of Metroplan which allowed the restructuring of grant funding to allow preservation to move forward.

The bridge was removed from the Cadron in November of 2016. The BACH Steel  Rivet Gang went to work with the disassembly and marking the members for transportation to a paint removal company in Little Rock, managed by Snyder Environmental. Workin’ Bridges was then given the job of designing the new substructure at Lake Beaverfork, engineered by James Schiffer of Schiffer Engineering Group of Traverse City, Michigan.

Once the caissons were designed, drilled, formed and poured,  and covered with riveted columns repairs to the bridge trusses began. Nels Raynor of BACH Steel is the premier bridge restoration craftsman throughout the United States that specializes in restoring bridges the old fashioned way. “In Kind” restoration means that parts are replaced with similar parts, rivets replaced with rivets and if new parts are required they are fashioned with care. When asked Raynor stated: “This one stands out as one of the most beautiful. I wish there were more people like those of Conway and Faulkner County. Those who wish to protect and save their hesitate. It’s part of my life’s work to preserve those structures. My company has been bless with finding those with the same passion inmy partners Derek and Lee Pung, Andy Hufnagel and Brock. Behind the scenes we have my daughter Heather Raynor, Nathan Holth and Jim Schiffer. We want to thank everyone for giving us the creative freedom to make this one of the most memorable and beautiful bridges we have ever been involved with.”

Close-up of the work done on the bridge, which includes new decking and railing, plus restoration that is in-kind.

Jack Bell, Chief of Staff for the City of Conway, Mark Ledbetter, Director of Roads for Faulkner County, Steve Ibbotson, Director of Parks for the City of Conway and Judge Baker were the team that provided the collaborative efforts to make this a successful project. They teamed up for all of the site requirements, from building a road and crane pad to the old location on Cadron Creek, to building the roads and crane pad for the reset at Lake Beaverfork. They utilized reclaimed stone from the original abutments to sculpt the new location with retaining walls and provide a bench for viewing. Bell said, “The partnership between Workin’ Bridges, BACH Steel, Faulkner and the City of Conway was essential to bring this project to fruition.  A significant piece of Faulkner County history has been saved and an iconic amenity has been added to our Parks system.”

New railings, as required by law, were designed by Raynor and company, who were able to provide historically accurate laced and riveted railing, using requirements for today’s pedestrians. The rail was then sent to Conway, where the local historical society teamed up with Workin’ Bridges to  promote the “Paint the Rail” campaign. The campaign successfully contributed the funds needed to coat the rail, using a PPG product delivered by Furgerson Brothers Painting.

Nels Raynor answering questions from reporters.

The restoration will be featured in a documentary filmed by Terry Strauss of Ultimate Restorations and should be available for viewing on PBS and through Amazon Prime in the fall of 2017. It will be featured in a later article provided by the Bridgehunter’s Chronicles.  The project was also documented by Workin’ Bridges with the aid of Nathan Holth of HistoricBridges.org. The bridge was built by craftsmen and the record of their work, the “craftsman’s record” was evident in each cast and riveted piece in the bridge said  Raynor. “To think that this all started six years ago with a site visit to Arkansas with my son Brock and Bowers with Workin’ Bridges. What this bridge has become today is just amazing to me and I have been involved with many bridge projects”.

It is a testament to the fact that we work better together, always have. The collaboration made a very big bridge project manageable, and used resources in a way that reduced time and material cost”, stated Bowers from her office in Holt, Michigan. “One never knows if a site visit that renders real numbers for project evaluation will become a job. These bridges take a lot of time, craftsmanship and money, but in the end it is all about making memories. The collaboration worked well and rendered a project that could have cost far more into an affordable package for the parks system.”

More information about the bridge, pictures from the process can be found at Springfield Bridge on Facebook. Questions may be directed to Julie Bowers at jbowerz1@gmail.com. The Chronicles would like to congratulations to Julie, Nels and the rest of the crew for bringing a relict back to life. Thanks to you, you’ve just given people a chance to learn more about the history of Conway County, King and American infrastructure. 🙂

Bockau Arch Bridge Closed; Coming Down in Favor of a New Bridge

Bridge built in the 1600s to be replaced on a new alignment. Petition to reuse the bridge for pedestrian use still in the running.

AUE (SAXONY)/ DRESDEN/ BERLIN-  While we read about historic bridges being demolished we mostly find metal truss bridges, between the ages of 70 and 130 years, that are coming down, despite having potential of being reused. We almost never see a stone arch bridge that meets the wrecking ball, regardless of age.

That is unless you look at and read about this bridge, the Bockau Arch Bridge, spanning the Zwickauer Mulde River at the village of Bockau, six kilometers southwest of Aue and exactly the same south of Schneeberg in the Ore Mountains (Erzgebirge). Built in the 1600s, the bridge is located near the historic Rechenhaus (Headworks House), dam and waterway, which had been built between 1556 and 1559, providing drinking water to the villages along the river. The crossing was essential for miners needing to use the bridge as they cross between Zschorlau and Schneeberg on the northern side and Bockau on the opposite side of the river. The five-span stone arch bridge, made using sandstone, was rehabilitated in the 19th century and survived a scare in April 1945, when Nazis tried to implode the structure in a failed attempt to stop the advancement of Russian troops from the east and Americans from the south and east. American troops from the 11th tank division occupied the bridge before the Nazis could demolish the structure.  Despite this, plus two major floods that caused damage to the structure (the last resulted in adding steel bracings to the arches), the bridge remains in decent shape- at least from my observations- although potential rehabilitation is needed to prolong its life much longer.

Despite its historic status, the 400+ year old structure is coming down. Crews are cutting down trees in a plan to build a new structure to better accomodate traffic from Schneeberg and Zschorlau while at the same time, realign German highway 283 to eliminate the sharp curves the historic bridge presents to the highway. According to the Saxony Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure, the bridge will be a straight crossing, having a modern style with skewed approaches. The highway will be expanded into an expressway, merging traffic with that from Bockau. This includes bike and pedestrian paths. In addition, new retaining walls at the new bridge will be needed and the rock escarpment that flows down through Bockau into the Mulde will be redone. In the last phase of the project, which will be completed by November 2019, the historic bridge will be removed. This will happen towards the end of next year, unless waves are made by locals and politicians to keep the bridge in tact to be reused for pedestrian purposes.

A petition was created in April of this year, calling for the bridge to be left as is, even after the new bridge is built because it retains its historic character and is protected by the German Preservation Laws (Denkmalschutz Gesetz). In addition, three rare species reside at and near the bridge, including the fire salamander, different species of bats and the water ouzer (dipper). Calls for saving the historic bridge is gaining momentum, as even members of the German Green Party are calling for the bridge to be saved for the aforementioned reasons. Still, resisitance has been ignored for the State of Saxony has rejected plans for a two-bridge solution, and the Federal Government, which is footing the 6.4 million Euro project, expects the historic bridge to be demolished by November 2018.  The fight is still on but time and resources are running out, especially with every tree that is being cut down for the project, as the author observed during his visit on the 28th of August.

In this picture, you can see how the new alignment will look like, with Highway 283 in the background.

Already the bridge is closed to traffic as of the 28th of August, as seen from my visit. The Zwickauer Mulde Bike Trail (which runs under the historic bridge) is also fenced off, with a detour following the current highway and street going to Schindlerswerk on the southern side of the river. The 1.5 kilometer detour is expected to remain in place until November 2018, when the bridge is removed. Highway 283 will be detoured from Aue through Zschorlau and Albernau beginning in September and lasting until the completion of the project in November 2019. Local traffic between Bockau and Aue will remain open with some restrictions.  Whether this plan will still take hold, depends on the progress of the petition for the preservation of the old bridge and whether authorities in Dresden and Berlin will concede and allow the locals to keep their bridge. Should that not be the case, this project may have some repurcussions with other projects in the pipeline, including the plan to replace the Chemnitz Viaduct to better accomodate the German Railways’ (the Bahn) InterCity trains. That project, which has been stalled due to stark opposition from locals, the state historic preservation office and other experts in bridge preservation, is also being backed by Berlin as the Bahn is partially owned by the government.

Historic Bockau Bridge is now closed. Chances of saving the structure, let alone photograph it are getting slimmer by the day.

If you want to sign the petition to save the bridge, click onto the link and include your name, address and reasons for saving it. Never say never if you want your historic bridge kept in place once the project is finished. The Chronicles will keep you posted on the latest.

Information on the new alignment and detour:

 

Did Nicholas build the oldest bridge in Australia?

This blogger wrote a little history about the MacQuarie Culvert in Australia, which was claimed to be the oldest built in Australia. The question here is whether Nicholas Delaney built this bridge. The bridge was mentioned in the Mystery Bridge article on the culverts in the German state of Schleswig-Holstein. More here: https://bridgehunterschronicles.wordpress.com/2017/08/23/mystery-bridge-nr-86-brick-culverts-spanning-drainage-canals-and-gullies-along-the-north-sea/

But before reading that, why not read about this culvert and its unique history? 🙂

A Rebel Hand

If you visit the Royal Botanic Garden in Sydney, take a few minutes to look for a small bridge over a stream near the Wollemi Pine, ‘Australia’s homegrown Christmas tree’, close to the information booth.

This is the Macquarie Culvert.

Macquarie Culvert, CC via Wikipedia

The two brick arches were built as part of the construction of Mrs Macquarie’s Road, which Nicholas Delaney and his gang finished on her birthday in June 1816. They had a double purpose: a drain for the creek’s water, and a bridge.

Damage

Built from sandstock brick, the culvert is both typical of early 19th-century drain construction and historically significant, the historian Anna Wong says. But at the end of the 20th century it was in a state of disrepair, with most of the mortar gone and a rare giant fern’s roots threatening to damage it further.

And the original road was covered…

View original post 491 more words

Mystery Bridge Nr. 86: Brick Culverts spanning Drainage Canals and Gullies along the North Sea

Culverts- tunnels that channel water under roads. Culverts are used as a substitute for (mainly small to medium-sized) bridges spanning creeks and small waterways as they have several advantages. First and foremost, they provide minimum maintenance, as either earth and roadway cover them or the short crossings are anchored to the ground and supported by abutments. It acts as a canal for directing water under the roadway but also as a dam to keep debris from blocking the roadway. Yet the drawbacks to culverts is that they are not really effective against high water for floodwaters can undermine culverts by washing out the roadways approaching them. In some cases, they can even collapse, swallowing cars in the process, if they attempt to cross them. If they are not washed out by flooding, the high water can cause flooding upstream up until the crossing itself. In summary, engineers should really think about the advantages and disadvantages of culverts before they even implement them as replacements for bridges deemed obsolete.

This mystery bridge deals with a culvert (or should I say a series of culverts) but in order to better understand the logic behind this, we need to look back at the types of culverts that exist and the oldest known culvert known to human kind.  There are five different types of culverts that are used today: pipe, box, pipe arch, arch and bridge slab- the first three can be multiple spans, the last two are single spans of up to 30 meters. All of them are usually built of steel, stone or concrete. Only a handful have been built using brick.

Arkadiko Bridge in Greece. Photo taken in 2012 Flausa123 courtesy of wikipedia

 

The oldest known culverts that exist in the world go very far back- way back to the Bronze Age. There, you can find Arkadiko Bridge in the state of Argolis in Greece. Built between 1300 and 1190 BC, the stone culvert has a total span of 22 meters and an arch span of 2.5 meters. It is one of four remaining bridges of its kind using an Mycenaean arch design, all of them are located near Arkadiko.

The next one in line is a stone arch bridge over the River Meles in Izmir in Turkey. Built in 850 BC, this bridge is the oldest of its kind still in use. In Australia, the Macquarie Bridge, featuring a double-barrel arch culvert, is considered the oldest bridge still in use. The 1816 bridge can be found in the Royal Botanical Gardens in Sydney. The Old Enon Stone Arch Culvert, built by Samuel Taylor in 1871 and spans Mud Run in Ohio, is the oldest known culvert in the US and one that was built using limestone.

The culverts in the Eiderstedt region in the German state of Schleswig-Holstein may not be as old as the aforementioned bridges, nor is it definitely the oldest in Germany- that honor goes to the Stone Arch Bridge (built in 1146 AD) over the River Danube in Regensburg (Bavaria). But given their appearance, they are one of the oldest in the region, let alone in Schleswig-Holstein. The culverts discovered during my tour along the North Sea to Westerheversand Lighthouse consists of box culverts, built using brick as material. They each span a drainage canal which is used to divert water away from the fields during high tides (German: Flut). And despite the bike trail careening along the dikes that are lined along the shores of the North Sea, these culverts are still in use for farm vehicles. The concept is odd, but because farming is practiced in the Eiderstedt region, brick culverts were used along with concrete and sometimes wooden bridges to haul farm vehicles.

 

The dikes were established in the early 1960s, in response to a massive storm that flooded large parts of western Schleswig-Holstein, Lower Saxony and the City of Hamburg in 1962. 400 people lost their lives in Hamburg alone, as dike failures took them by surprise and almost all of the hanseatic city was under water. With the dikes came the rechanneling of waterways, eliminating natural gullies, as one can see while traveling along the North Sea coast. The damming of the rivers, such as the Eider, Au, Sorge and Treene, caused the massive extinction of marine wildlife, including the sturgeon, which used to lay eggs upstream close to the rivers’ starting point. The last sturgeon was caught in 1969 and there has not been a single sturgeon in the region ever since. The creation of the Eidersperrwerk near St. Peter-Ording put the last nails in the coffin of the natural cycle of the North Sea, protecting farmers and residents from the flooding processes.

 

Detailed markings of one of the culverts. Look at the rust and moss that has developed over the years.

 

Yet the culverts seen in the pics are much older than the dike and drainage systems that have existed since the 1960s. Judging by the green and yellow moss on the brick and the decoloration of the brick and concrete, it is estimated that the culverts are at least a century old, if not older. Unfortunately, there are no records of the date of construction of the culverts, let alone the bridge builder(s) responsible for building them. Not even the German bridge website Brueckenweb.de has any data on the bridges, nor the Dusseldorf-based Structurae.net. Only a map where the author found the structures and the pictures are the only piece of information that is known to exist.

 

While some records may be available through local authorities in Husum, St. Peter-Ording or Eiderstedt, the chances of finding concrete information is very slim, because the culverts are only 20 meters long with a center span of only 5 meters, and there are dozens of them that are known to exist, aside from the ones that were found near Westerhever.

Do you know of some information on the history of these ancient culverts? Let alone the number of culverts that still exist in the region alone? If so, then please contact the Chronicles and share some information about them. Any clues, including photos, will be of great help. The culverts will be included in the book project on the bridges in Schleswig-Holstein. Information on how you can contribute can be found here. (Hinweis auf Deutsch: Sie können die Information in der deutschen Sprachen übersenden, da der Autor sehr gutes deutsche Kenntnisse hat.)

 

The culverts and the covered bridge profiled here, are a couple of many bridges the author found during his trip to the Eiderstedt region. However, there are plenty more that visitors should see while vacationing there. The author has a few bridges that one should see while visiting the Eiderstedt region. The tour guide will come very soon.

 

Author’s notes:  Enclosed is a map with the exact location and specifics of the culverts found during the trip. Information on the Great Flood of 1962 in Hamburg/ Schleswig-Holstein can be found here. A video on the event can be found here.

Ironically, an even bigger flood occurred 16 years later after the dikes and dams were built. It all occurred during the year summer never existed which ended with the Great Blizzard of 1978/79 that crippled the northern half of Germany, stranding thousands of motorists and causing massive flooding in Schleswig-Holstein alone. More information can be found here. and here.

 

 

Mystery Bridge Nr. 85: A Covered Bridge with a Thatched Roof

Thatching is a different but efficient concept for roofing a house. Houses with thatched roofs have a Roof that is built using dry vegetation, such as straw, sedge, heather, water reed, palm fronds and/or rushes and with that, each side of the house has a roof that slants downwards towards the outer edge. Thatched Roofs have a dual function where it allows water to flow off the outer roof, keeping the inner roof dry (and thus preventing rotting and molding of the wood), but at the same time, it acts as an insulator, keeping the warm air inside during the winter and outside during the summer months. Houses with thatches roofs can be found in Areas with tropical climates, but also those with a continental climate, such as the northern parts Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, France and Great Britain.

While architects find creative ways to building houses with thatched roofs, it is also no surprise that one can find covered bridges with thatched roofs. One just has to stumble across something like this one, located just south of St. Peter-Ording in the German state of Schleswig-Holstein.

Located on a trail that separates the clinic and the Westküsten Park and Robbarium, this bridge Looks like a typical small crossing that spans a canal that transfers water from the North Sea to the fields to prevent flooding during high tides and severe storms but also to provide water to the farm lands nearby. The bridge is only seven to eight meters long, but the width is about 40 centimeters wider, especially if you count the overhead portion.  In bridge terminology, the bridge is a through truss using the Kingpost design. The entire structure is made of wood.

Close-up of the A-framed Kingpost truss design.

Yet looking at it further, it definitely has the thatched roof appearance, as two different layers are added to the roof to make it unusual. The top layer has either sedge or rush roofing, whereas the bottom layer has the typical reed roofing, one sees with houses in Schleswig-Holstein and neighboring Mecklenburg-Pommerania. This type of construction makes the bridge very unusual for a covered bridge, but it does lead to the question of whether this is the only bridge of ist kind in the region, Germany or even Europe, or if there are similar bridges of ist kind out there. and if so, where.

Close-up of the thatched roofing: The reed is the bottom layer; the sedge or rush is the top layer.

While the roof has the function of protecting the remaining elements from rotting or molding caused by moisture from rains, the structure itself is no older than 20 years old, for even though there is moss on some of the wooden beams, the bridge and its trusses look relatively new. Therefore, it is estimated that the bridge was built between 1995 and 2005, if not later. It is the question of who built it and why the engineer decided for this unique design.

If you know more about this bridge, please send the author an e-mail with some information about it. This will be useful for the upcoming book project on the bridges of Schleswig-Holstein. What is just as important (or even more) than this bridge is the following:

How many covered bridges have a thatched roof similar to this one? And where are they located?

 

A discussion Forum has been established on facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram so that you can comment on this. Photos and info for the other bridges would be much appreciated.  🙂