Maple Street Covered Bridge

Maple Street Covered Bridge
Maple Street Covered Bridge Bridge in U.S. state of Vermont
Carries	Maple Street
Crosses	Mill Brook
Locale	Fairfax, Vermont
Maintained by	Town of Fairfax
ID number	VT-06-02
Characteristics
Design	Covered, Town lattice
Material	Wood
Total length	56.8 ft (17.31 m)
Width	17.3 ft (5.27 m)
No. of spans	1
Load limit	4 tons
Clearance above	9.5 ft (2.90 m)
History
Constructed by	Kingsbury and Stone
Construction end	1865 (1865)
Maple Street Covered Bridge
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
Coordinates
Area	1 acre (0.4 ha)
NRHP reference No.	74000215
Added to NRHP	November 5, 1974
Location

The Maple Street Covered Bridge, also called the Lower Covered Bridge and the Fairfax Covered Bridge, is a covered bridge that carries Maple Street across Mill Brook off State Route 104 in Fairfax, Vermont. Built in 1865, it is the town's only historic covered bridge, and is a rare two-lane covered bridge in the state. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974.

Description and history

The Maple Street Covered Bridge is located on the south side of Fairfax village, carrying Maple Street across Mill Brook, a tributary of the nearby Lamoille River, between the village center and Bellows Free Academy. The bridge is a single-span structure of Town lattice design, set on abutments of stone and concrete. It is 56.5 feet (17.2 m) long and 20.5 feet (6.2 m) wide, with a roadway width of 17.5 feet (5.3 m). Iron tie rods join the tops of the flanking trusses to provide lateral stability, and the bridge deck is made of wooden planking. The exterior is clad in vertical board siding, which ends short of the eaves on the sides. The siding extends a short way on the interior of each portal.

The bridge was built in 1865 by Kingsbury and Stone. It is the town's only surviving 19th-century covered bridge, and is rare in the state as an example of a two-lane bridge, built to accommodate significant village traffic. A major renovation was conducted in 1990-1991 by Jan Lewandoski. Debate is conducted to this day as to whether the bridge is now "backwards". When it was washed off its foundations by the Flood of 1927 it is unknown whether the bridge was put back on in the same direction as it was originally. Some say the eastern portal now faces west, and vice versa.

Maple Street Bridge

See also

• List of covered bridges in Vermont
• National Register of Historic Places listings in Franklin County, Vermont
• List of bridges on the National Register of Historic Places in Vermont

External links

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