Gudgeonville Bridge

Gudgeonville Covered Bridge

The Gudgeonville Covered Bridge is a long Multiple King-post Truss covered bridge over Elk Creek in Girard Township, Erie County in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. It was built in 1868 and was listed on the National Register of Historical Places on September 17, 1980.

It is the oldest of the three remaining covered bridges in Erie County. The bridge structure's sufficiency rating on the Federal Highway Administration National Bridge Inventory was only 14.6 percent and its condition was deemed "basically intolerable requiring high priority of corrective action".

Name

The most likely origin of the name was that it was taken from a now vanished community near where the bridge is located that was called "Gudgeonville. Although the source for the root,"gudgeon", is a mystery, it may have arose from the wagon part of the same name or from the small fish and minnows in the creek below the bridge that are called gudgeons.

One explanation is that a foundry was located in the valley whose speciality was making gudgeons. Another explanation was that there was a saw mill in the valley. A stranger asked the saw miller one day, "What is the name of this beautiful place?" The place had no name, but the miller was looking at the bearing of the water wheel when the traveler asked the question, and the miller answered him with "Gudgeonville." A popular explanation for the origin of the name is that the donkey that supposedly died on the bridge was named "Gudgeon."

History

Construction

The Gudgeonville Bridge was constructed around 1868 and was rebuilt in the early 1870s after a fire. The bridge is located in Girard Township, Pennsylvania and crosses Elk Creek. The bridge was built and designed by William Sherman. The foundation of the bridge is believed to be remnants of the Erie Extension Canal.

Modern use and status

The bridge has been damaged from numerous small fires and has been the site of constant vandalism over the years. There are several proposals to dismantle the bridge and move it to a more secure location where it would not be vandalized. Another proposal is to build another bridge to bypass the original bridge, as it is too narrow to allow a variety of vehicles to cross it, including snowplows, fire trucks, and ambulances.

Evans' 2001 Pennsylvania's covered bridges: a complete guide described the bridge to be "structurally sound," but its general appearance to be "most disappointing". The Federal Highway Administration National Bridge Inventory found the sufficiency rating of the bridge structure to be only 14.6 percent. It found that the bridge's foundations were determined to "scour critical," meaning that the bridge's foundations were "determined to be unstable for the calculated scour conditions," and that the railing "does not meet currently acceptable standards". Its overall condition was deemed "basically intolerable requiring high priority of corrective action", with an estimated cost to improve the bridge of $107,000.

Superstition

Superstition surrounds the bridge as locals believe the bridge to be haunted. The ghosts of children who have fallen off the cliff that flanks one side of the bridge are said to have been seen there. The unexplained sound of hooves on wood coming from the bridge can sometimes be heard, often accompanied by bray. One story is that a donkey was beaten to death on the bridge by its drunken owner because it refused to cross the bridge. Other stories involve a donkey that had a heart attack from being spooked by a calliope on a barge going beneath the bridge or that broke its leg one night on the bridge and had to be put down.

Bridge dimensions

The following table is a comparison of published measurements of length, width and load recorded in different sources using different methods, as well as the name or names cited. NBI measures bridge length between the "backwalls of abutments" or pavement grooves and the roadway width as "the most restrictive minimum distance between curbs or rails". The NRHP form was prepared by the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission (PHMC), which surveyed county engineers, historical and covered bridge societies, and others for all the covered bridges in the commonwealth. The Evans visited every covered bridge in Pennsylvania in 2001 and measured each bridge's length (portal to portal) and width (at the portal) for their book. The data in Zacher's book was based on a 1991 survey of all covered bridges in Pennsylvania by the PHMC and the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation, aided by local government and private agencies. The article uses primarily the NBI and NRHP data, as they are national programs.

Length feet (m)	Load short tons (MT)	Source (Year)
		NBI (2007)
*		NRHP (1979)
	NA	Evans (2001)
*	NA	Zacher (1986)

* Listed mainspan length only

Notes

a. The National Highway Administration established the sufficiency rating, which can vary from a low of 0 to a high of 100, as a way to prioritize federal funding for bridges. The rating is calculated based on "structural adequacy, whether the bridge is functionally obsolete, and level of service provided to the public". Federal funds are available for replacement of bridges with a rating of 50 or below, while those with a rating of 80 or below qualify for rehabilitation. In 2007, Pennsylvania had 22,291 bridges over long, of which 42.9 percent were either structurally deficient or functionally obsolete.