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Guilford (original location), Dearborn County

If you find errors in the data please contact Bill Caswell.

If you would like to provide information on covered bridges that no longer exist from your state, or adopt a state to work on, we would certainly welcome your assistance. Please contact Trish Kane for more information.

Inventory Number: IN/14-15-01x
County: Dearborn County
Township: Miller
Town/Village: Guilford
Bridge Name: Guilford (original location)
Crosses: East Fork of Tanner's Creek
Truss type: Burr Arch, early
Spans: 1
Length: 104' +14
Roadway Width:
Built: 1879
Builder: Archibald M. Kennedy & Sons
When Lost: 1960
Cause: Moved
Latitude: N39 10.15
Longitude: W084 54.61
See a map of the area
Topographic map of the area
Directions: 20-6N-1W.

Guilford Bridge (original location), Miller, Dearborn County, IN Built 1879 Moved 1960
Richard Donovan / Trish Kane Collection

Guilford Bridge (original location), Miller, Dearborn County, IN Built 1879 Moved 1960
Traugott Keller Photograph, July 2, 1952, NSPCB Archives

Guilford Bridge (relocated), Guilford, Dearborn County, IN Built 1879, Moved 1960, Burned 1993
G. Thomas Toy Photo, 1990's, NSPCB Archives

Comments:
The bridge originally crossed the East Fork of Tanner's Creek, heading west into Guilford. This single span Burr Arch Truss structure has a length of 104 feet, or 119 feet including the 7-foot overhang at each end, with a portal clearance 17 feet 9 inches wide by 11 feet 6 inches high. Per The Dearborn County Register, November 20, 1879, a bridge at Guilford over Tanner's Creek had been built by A. M. Kennedy and Son, 120 feet in length and 108 feet between abutments. The article was very favorable of the bridge and its builders. It had been accepted by the county commissioners on Saturday, the 15th. The costs were as follows: Excavation and stonework for two abutments = $5,335; Wood work by Kennedy and Son = $1,750; and Filling for approaches by N. Vogelhesang = $285.75. In 1960 the bridge was moved off the road where it stood a number of years before it was moved to its current location, just a few hundred yards from its original site, into a beautiful park where it is still open to traffic. In the 1900s, additional structural supports were added to this bridge to sustain heavier loads that were the result of Guilford's rail commerce in conjunction with nearby coalmines. Damaged in 1993, restoration was completed in 1997 by L. L. Brown Co., and the Amos Schwartz Co. The renovations included a sprinkler system, one of only three bridges in Indiana thus equipped. There were 2 modifications to the original Kennedy design that were removed in this last restoration, one being the internal rail providing a sheltered walkway and the other being the wood block pavement that was added during a Civilian Conservation Corps project; of the 3 covered bridges that received wood block pavement only the Darlington Bridge, in Montgomery County, remains.

Sources:
Ketcham, Bryan E.. Covered Bridges on the Byways of Indiana, 1949, page 11
The Dearborn County Register, November 20, 1879, p.2.
Gould, George E.. Indiana's Covered Bridges Thru the Years, 1977
County History Preservation Society (no longer accessible). Covered Bridges of Indiana, 2002, http://www.countyhistory.com/coveredbridge/dearborn1.htm
Travis, Dale. 'Indiana Covered Bridges List', updated to 11 Feb 2005, http://www.dalejtravis.com/cblist/cbin.htm (8 Mar 2005)
Cohen, Joseph. World Guide to Covered Bridges updated to November 2002, 2002

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