Rensselaer/Washington Counties

Buskirk Covered Bridge -- NY 32-42-02/58-04 Willy Grimmke, Superintendent of Washington County Department of Public Works shares the following news with us regarding the Buskirk Covered Bridge. The truss work is complete, the siding is on the bridge and the roof framing and sheathing is up. The bridge is self supporting and the shoring has been removed from the river. We are anticipating the bridge will be open to traffic by April 1, 2005 and final completion by the end of May. Great news, indeed!

Buskirk Bridge 32-42-02/58-04 Photo by Bob & Trish Kane, May 14, 2005	Buskirk Bridge 32-42-02/58-04 Photo by Bob & Trish Kane, May 14, 2005

Beyond New York

Virginia Covered Bridge Festival - For anyone interested in attending the Virginia Covered Bridge Festival here are the phone numbers of a few motels in the Martinsville area: Jameson Inn (276) 638-0478; Super 8 (276) 666-8888; Best Western (276) 632-5611; Best Lodge (276) 647-3941; Holiday Inn (276) 666-6835; and Quality Inn/Dutch Inn located in Collinsville (276) 647-3721. When making your reservations, please be sure to mention that you are with the Covered Bridge Society to get the discounted rate. For more specific information, contact Leola Pierce at VaBridgeLady@aol.com or call her at (757) 484- 4404 and she will be happy to send you a more detailed list of rates and services of each motel.

Other News

National Covered Bridge Postcard Week - For the covered bridge postcard collectors in our midst, don't forget that May 8-14, 2005 is National Covered Bridge Postcard week. This week is designated for trading, sending and sharing covered bridge postcards with other covered bridge postcard collectors. Many collectors even have special postcards printed for this event. Others simply mail one of their nice, duplicate cards. This is also a great time to order covered bridge postcards from fellow bridgers who publish their own. And just think about how many people handle that postcard while en route and see a covered bridge on the card. It is a great way to help promote our bridges. Kindly remember that it is postcard etiquette that if you receive a postcard, you return a card to the sender.

Important Notice: We have received numerous requests from folks inquiring as to who will be replacing Richard Donovan in regards to assigning World Guide numbers for new covered bridges. I am pleased to report that Dan Brock from Vernon, CT will be assuming these duties. Many of you may already know Dan as he has been assisting Richard for a number of years in this area and is the perfect person for the job. We all know how difficult it will be to replace Richard given his wonderful knowledge of our bridges, but Dan will no doubt do a great job having been well trained by his predecessor. If you have information on new bridges, please send it along to Dan so he can assign a number to them. Don't forget to include photographs of both the interior and exterior of the bridges as it helps to determine authenticity of the truss and if the bridge is self supporting. Also, if known, be sure to include the following information: builder's name; bridge name; length; number of spans; name of what the bridge crosses (river, brook, stream, creek, etc.); directions or address to the bridge; truss type; name of township where the bridge is located; and indicate if the bridge is a foot bridge or open to traffic. Please include as much of this information as possible as it is difficult to assign a number to a bridge without it. If you have any questions, please contact Dan at danjbrock@aol.com.

Congratulations to Leola Pierce, Founder and Vice President of the Virginia Covered Bridge Society! Senator Frederick Quayle recently introduced a bill commemorating Leola for her service to the Commonwealth of Virginia as a result of her dedication to preserving Virginia's historic timber covered bridges.Congratulations, Leola!

For anyone interested in all types of historic bridges, we found this excellent bridge site -- Historic Bridges in the News -- A Survey of Bridge News from the Web. You will want to visit it often as it is an excellent source of information regarding recent happenings with all types of historic bridges. The web address is: http://www.iceandcoal.org/bridges/bridgenews.html

Before getting into the details for this update, I would like to take a moment to thank all the people who have submitted information. Without the help of correspondents throughout the US and Canada, we would not have been able to achieve the milestones we have to date. In particular, our knowledge of Oregon, Ohio and New York bridges has been enhanced tremendously in recent weeks. More on that later.

The most significant supplement to the Covered Spans of Yesteryear website (www.lostbridges.org) since our last update is the addition of Vermont pictures. As I write this, 685 past and current Vermont bridges have been documented. We have scanned pictures of 360 of them and included them on the website. A similar situation exists in New Hampshire where 255 of the 424 known bridges include pictures with a few more to be added shortly. Indiana is next on the list to be scanned. If you are interested in offering pictures of the lost bridges in your area and have the ability to scan them, please contact me. There is still a vast amount of territory to cover and any assistance will be greatly appreciated. Email is usually the most effective way to contact me - bill@lostbridges.org.

In the year and a half since this project got underway, over 6,600 lost bridges have been documented. As I mentioned earlier, we have started receiving New York and Ohio data, which will increase that total significantly. Information about the known covered bridges of Oregon has recently been received and is being entered into the database. Once that step is completed, reports of the Oregon data will be sent out to experts in the area to check its accuracy.

As always, we welcome your comments and suggestions. With any project of this magnitude, errors are inevitable. Data extracted from books reflects the knowledge at the time they were written and may need to be updated. If you find inaccuracies in the data on the website, please bring them to our attention so they can be corrected.

We have established a number of contacts, but are still lacking in certain areas. Specifically, there is a need for people with knowledge of lost bridges in the southeastern states. If you can help in this area, please let us know.

Trish Kane, 167 Williams Rd., Sherburne, NY 13460,
bobtrish68@frontiernet.net, 607-674-9656

Bill Caswell, PO Box 2242, Concord, NH 03302-2242
bill@lostbridges.org.