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Carleton
County, New Brunswick Province, Canada
(WGN
55-02-07) (WGCB Unknown): (1921;
covered 1922; walkway added 1945; repaired 1982-83) A seven-span
Howe truss 1,282' over the St. John River. Located: In the
village of Hartland, Canada on Hartland Bridge Hill Road. Directions:
From the US Border, take Canada 95 which will turn into Canada 5 (which
is the old Trans Canadian Highway 2) and go approximately 15 miles until
you see a sign for Highway 103, Hartland. Take this road and follow
for approximately 2 miles until you come to highway 105, turn left, and
go down the hill to the bridge. (The road sign on Highway 5 will
show that a covered bridge is located down this road.) The longest
Covered Bridge in the World. The Original Hartland Bridge was built
between 1898 and 1901 by the Hartland Bridge Company, which was formed
by citizens on both sides of the St. John River. On July 4, 1901,
it officially opened as a toll bridge and charged three cents for pedestrians,
six cents for a single horse and wagon and twelve cents for a double team.
A strip of twenty tickets could be purchased for fifty cents. It
operated as a toll bridge until 1907 when the New Brunswick Legislature
passed an act to remove the tolls. There is a lot of controversy
about the construction date of the structure. After the original
bridge was severely damaged on April 6, 1920, when two spans of the bridge
were taken out by river ice, it was completely rebuilt including new concrete
piers and abutments which would make the current bridge a new bridge with
a construction date of 1921. A lot of the local population want the
date shown as 1898/1899 or 1901. It features a walkway running the
full length of the downstream side bridge that was added in 1945.
The bridge was closed in 1982 when a car struck a steel strain rod, causing
it to drop and break the main beam on the western most span. Repairs
were undertaken in 1982-1983 and the bridge was reopened for traffic on
February 10, 1983. The car received an estimated $400.00 damage,
while the bill for repairing the bridge was $140,000.00. There are
no windows in the structure and the portals and sides are completely covered
with vertical unpainted boards, however the upper half of the walkway is
open. Its roof is covered with asphalt shingles and the floor is
paved with asphalt. A January 27, 2006 newspaper article reported
that an ice jam formed below the bridge which caused the ice to reach within
1 meter of the structures base. However neither the bridge or its
piers were damaged. On June 23, 1980 it was declared a National
Historic Site and on September 15, 1999, it was declared a Provincial Historic
Site. (May 2006) |
