Plunketts Creek Bridge No. 3
Plunketts Creek Bridge No. 3 | |
---|---|
Historic American Engineering Record, National Register of Historic Places | |
Total length | 75 ft (23 m)[2] |
Width | 15.25 ft (4.65 m)[2] |
History | |
Built | between 1840 and 1875 |
Formerly listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places | |
MPS | Highway Bridges Owned by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Department of Transportation, TR |
NRHP reference No. | 88000830 |
Significant dates | |
Added to NRHP | June 22, 1988 |
Removed from NRHP | July 22, 2002 |
Location | |
Plunketts Creek Bridge No. 3 was a
The bridge was 75 feet (23 m) long, with an arch that spanned 44 feet (13 m), a deck 18 feet 8 inches (5.69 m) wide, and a roadway width of 15 feet 3 inches (4.65 m). It carried a single lane of traffic. In the 19th century, the bridge and its road were used by the lumber, leather, and coal industries active along the creek. By the early 20th century, these industries had almost entirely left, and the villages declined. The area the bridge served reverted mostly to second growth forest and it was used to access Pennsylvania State Game Lands and a state pheasant farm.
Plunketts Creek Bridge No. 3 was considered "significant as an intact example of mid-19th century stone arch bridge construction",
History
Early inhabitants and name
Plunketts Creek is in the
Plunketts Creek is named for
Lycoming County was formed from Northumberland County in 1795. When Plunketts Creek Township was formed in Lycoming County in 1838, the original name proposed was "Plunkett Township", but Plunkett's lack of active support for the American Revolution some years earlier had led some to believe his loyalty lay with the British Empire. The lingering suspicion of his loyalist sympathies led to the proposed name being rejected. Naming the township for the creek rather than its namesake was seen as an acceptable compromise.[2][5]
Villages and road
In 1832, John Barbour built a
The bridge is at the mouth of Coal Mine
By the latter half of the 19th century, these industries supported the inhabitants of two villages in Plunketts Creek Township.In 1868 the village of Proctorville was founded as a company town for Thomas E. Proctor's tannery, which was completed in 1873.[2][7] Proctor, as it is now known, is 1.66 miles (2.67 km) north of Barbours along Plunketts Creek,[8] and the main road to it crossed the bridge. The bark from eastern hemlock trees was used in the tanning process, and the village originally sat in the midst of vast forests of hemlock.[2] The tannery employed "several hundred" workers at wages between 50 cents and $1.75 a day. These employees lived in 120 company houses, which each cost $2 a month to rent.[5][7][9] In 1892, Proctor had a barber shop, two blacksmiths, cigar stand, Independent Order of Odd Fellows hall, leather shop, news stand, a post office (established in 1885), a two-room school, two stores, and a wagon shop.[5][7]
The road between Barbours and Proctor crosses Plunketts Creek four times and the four bridges are numbered in order, starting from the southernmost in Barbours near the mouth and going upstream. While evidence such as maps indicates that the third bridge was constructed close to 1840, the first definitive proof of its existence is a survey to relocate the road between the second and third bridges in 1875. The first bridge over Plunketts Creek was replaced with a covered bridge in 1880, and the second bridge was replaced in 1886. That same year, the road between the second and third bridges was moved again, returning to its original position on the west side of the creek.[2]
Finished sole leather was hauled over the bridge by horse-drawn wagon south about 8 miles (13 km) to Little Bear Creek, where it was exchanged for "green"
20th century
Small-scale lumbering continued in the watershed in the 20th century, but the last logs were floated under the bridge down Plunketts Creek to Loyalsock Creek in 1905.[7] In 1918, a flood on the creek damaged the road for 100 feet (30 m) on both sides of the bridge, and caused "settling and cracking of the bridge itself".[2] The bridge had needed repairs and reconstruction. In 1931, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania passed legislation that gave the state responsibility for the costs of road and bridge maintenance for many highways belonging to local municipalities. This took effect in 1932, relieving Plunketts Creek Township and Lycoming County of the responsibility.[2]
Without timber and the tannery, the populations of Proctor and Barbours declined, as did traffic on the road and bridges between them. The Barbours post office closed in the 1930s and the Proctor post office closed on July 1, 1953. Both villages also lost their schools and almost all of their businesses.[9][11] Proctor celebrated its centennial in 1968, and a 1970 newspaper article on its 39th annual "Proctor Homecoming" reunion called it a "near-deserted old tannery town".[9][10] In the 1980s, the last store in Barbours closed, and the former hotel (which had become a hunting club) was torn down to make way for a new bridge across Loyalsock Creek.[6]
Plunketts Creek has been a place for lumber and tourism since its villages were founded, and as industry declined, nature recovered.[6] Second growth forests have since covered most of the clear-cut land. Pennsylvania's state legislature authorized the acquisition of abandoned and clear-cut land for Pennsylvania State Game Lands in 1919, and the Pennsylvania Game Commission (PGC) acquired property along Plunketts Creek for State Game Lands Number 134 between 1937 and 1945.[2][12] The main entrance to State Game Lands 134 is just north of the bridge site, on the east side of the creek.[2][13]
The PGC established the Northcentral State Game Farm in 1945 on part of State Game Lands 134 to raise wild turkey. The farm was converted to ringneck pheasant production in 1981, and, as of 2007, it was one of four Pennsylvania state game farms that produced about 200,000 pheasants each year for release on land open to public hunting.[14] The Northcentral State Game Farm is chiefly in the Plunketts Creek valley, just south of Proctor and north of the bridge.[2][13] The opening weekend of the trout season brings more people into the village of Barbours at the mouth of Plunketts Creek than any other time of the year.[6]
On June 22, 1988, the bridge was added to the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP), as part of the Multiple Property Submission (MPS) of Highway Bridges Owned by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Department of Transportation, TR. The MPS included 135 bridges owned by the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PennDOT), 58 of which were of the stone arch type. While the individual NRHP form for the bridge cites a 1932 inspection report (the year that the state took over its maintenance),[15] the MPS form mistakenly gives the bridge's date of construction as 1932.[16][17]
Flood and destruction
In January 1996, there was major flooding throughout Pennsylvania. The 1995–1996 early winter was unusually cold, and considerable ice buildup formed in local streams. A major blizzard on January 6–8 produced up to 40 inches (100 cm) of snow, which was followed on January 19–21 by more than 3 inches (76 mm) of rain with temperatures as high as 62 °F (17 °C) and winds up to 38 miles per hour (61 km/h). The rain and snowmelt caused flooding throughout Pennsylvania and ice jams made this worse on many streams. Elsewhere in Lycoming County, flooding on Lycoming Creek in and near Williamsport killed six people and caused millions of dollars in damage.[18]
On Plunketts Creek, ice jams led to record flooding, which caused irreparable major damage to the mid-19th century stone arch bridge.[2] Downstream in Barbours, the waters were 4 feet (1.2 m) deep in what was then called the village's "worst flood in history".[6][Note a] Plunketts Creek Bridge No. 3 was one of two destroyed in Lycoming County, and on January 31 a photograph of the damaged bridge was featured on the front page of the Williamsport Sun-Gazette with the caption "This old stone arch bridge over Plunketts Creek must be replaced."[19] In neighboring Sullivan County, the Sonestown Covered Bridge, also on the NRHP, was so damaged by the flood that it remained closed for repairs until late December 1996.[20] Throughout Pennsylvania, these floods led to 20 deaths and 69 municipal- or state-owned bridges being either "destroyed or closed until inspections could verify their safety".[18]
When it became clear that the bridge could not be repaired, PennDOT awarded an emergency contract for a temporary bridge before the end of January, citing "emergency vehicles that can no longer travel directly from Barbours" to Proctor and beyond.
Description and construction
Plunketts Creek Bridge No. 3 was a rubble masonry stone arch bridge, oriented roughly east–west over Plunketts Creek. Its overall length was 75 feet (23 m) and its single semi-circular arch spanned 44 feet (13 m).[15] The bridge deck width was 18 feet 8 inches (5.69 m), and its roadway was 15 feet 3 inches (4.65 m) wide, which could accommodate only a single lane of traffic.[2] Just before the flood that led to the bridge's destruction, about 450 vehicles crossed the bridge daily.[19] The outside corners of the wing walls were 25 feet (7.6 m) apart, which combined with the overall length of 75 feet (23 m) led to a total area of 1,875 square feet (174.2 m2) being listed on the NRHP.[15]
The bridge rested on
Pennsylvania has a long history of stone arch bridges, including the oldest such bridge in use in the United States, the 1697 Frankford Avenue Bridge over Pennypack Creek in Philadelphia.[2] Such bridges typically used local stone, with three types of finishing possible. Rubble or third-class masonry construction used stones just as they came from the quarry; squared-stone or second-class masonry used stones that had been roughly dressed and squared; and ashlar or first-class masonry used stones which had been finely dressed and carefully squared. Rubble masonry was the quickest and cheapest for construction, and had the largest tolerances. Many of the oldest stone bridges in Pennsylvania were built using rubble masonry techniques.[2]
Stone bridge construction started with the excavation of foundations for the abutments. Then a temporary structure known as a center or centering would be built of wood or iron. This structure supported the stone arch during construction. Once the stone arch was built, the spandrel walls and wing walls could be added. Then the road bed was built, with fill (loose stones or dirt) added to support it as needed. Wall and arch stones were generally set in place dry to ensure a good fit, then set in mortar. Once the bridge was complete and the mortar had properly hardened, the center was gradually lowered and then removed. In March 1996, after standing for between 156 and 121 years, the arch of Bridge No. 3 finally collapsed.[2]
Note
- a. ^ The January 1996 flood which destroyed Plunketts Creek Bridge No. 3 was surpassed by flooding associated with remnants of Tropical Storm Lee in September 2011. In the nearby village of Shunk in Fox Township, Sullivan County, Lee dumped 11.36 inches (289 mm) of rainfall.[22] Plunketts Creek has no stream gauge, but just downstream of its mouth the gauge on the Loyalsock Creek bridge at Barbours was a record 34.0 feet (10.4 m) on September 7, 2011 (for comparison, the January 20–21, 1996 flood crest was 24.9 feet (7.6 m)).[23] The 2011 flooding destroyed a small stone bridge on Wallis Run Road in Proctor over a tributary of Plunketts Creek.[24]
See also
- List of bridges documented by the Historic American Engineering Record in Pennsylvania
- List of bridges on the National Register of Historic Places in Pennsylvania
References
- ^ National Map. Retrieved June 5, 2013.
- ^ Historic American Engineering Record and Library of Congress. Retrieved March 13, 2013. Metadata including black and white photographs and descriptive captions is here.
- ^ ISBN 0-7884-0428-8. Retrieved on September 30, 2008. Note: ISBN refers to the Heritage Books July 1996 reprint. URL is to a scan of the 1892 version with some OCRtypos.
- ISBN 1-889037-11-7. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2009-03-04. Retrieved on September 30, 2008. Note: ISBN refers to a 1999 reprint edition, URL is for the Susquehanna River Basin Commission's web page of Native American Place names, quoting and citing the book.
- ^ ISBN 0-7884-0428-8. Retrieved June 5, 2013. Note: ISBN refers to the Heritage Books July 1996 reprint. URL is to a scan of the 1892 version with some OCR typos.
- ^ a b c d e Barr, James P (January 12, 1997). "Sock Country casts Spell on Residents of Tiny Barbours". Williamsport Sun-Gazette. pp. B9–10.
- ^ a b c d e "Proctorville – Historic Village". Now and then (The Journal of the Muncy, Pennsylvania Historical Society). XV (5): 277. October 1966. Note: the article has a note that it was written in 1959, but the author's name was lost prior to publication in 1966.
- ^ Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection; Bureau of Watershed Management, Division of Water Use Planning (2001). Pennsylvania Gazetteer of Streams (PDF). Prepared in Cooperation with the United States Department of the Interior Geological Survey. Retrieved June 2, 2013.
- ^ a b c d "History Recalled as Proctor Plans to Celebrate Centennial". Williamsport Sun-Gazette. August 18, 1968. p. 11.
- ^ a b "Near-Deserted Old Tannery Town Schedules 39th Annual Homecoming". Grit (Williamsport Edition). August 9, 1970. p. 20.
- ^ Pollom, Leon J (August 18, 1994). "Community Profile: Is there a Better Place in God's Country than the Village of Barbours?". Williamsport Sun-Gazette. p. 11.
- ^ Pennsylvania Game Commission (January 24, 2007). "2007 Press Release: Release #012-07: Board Approves Acquisition of Nearly 160 Acres" (PDF). Retrieved June 5, 2013.
- ^ a b State Game Lands 134, Lycoming and Sullivan Counties (PDF) (Map). Pennsylvania Game Commission. July 1993. Archived from the original (PDF) on April 3, 2006. Retrieved June 5, 2013.
- ^ "Pheasant Program – A guide to pheasant releases and more". Pennsylvania Game Commission. Archived from the original on June 3, 2008. Retrieved June 5, 2013.
- ^ a b c d e f "Bridge in Plunketts Creek Township". National Park Service (June 22, 1988). Note: this file contains not only the NRHP Nomination Form, but also the May 31, 2002 letter from the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission requesting removal of the bridge from the NRHP.
- ^ "NPS Focus". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. Retrieved June 5, 2013.
- ^ "Highway Bridges Owned by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Department of Transportation TR (Thematic Resources)" (PDF). National Park Service. June 22, 1988. Retrieved June 5, 2013.
- ^ a b Thompson, R.E. Jr. (April 10, 1996). "Statewide Floods in Pennsylvania, January 1996". United States Geological Survey. Retrieved June 5, 2013.
- ^ a b c d Pollom, Leon J. (January 31, 1996). "Road, Bridge Costs Climb". Williamsport Sun-Gazette. pp. A1, A6.
- ^ Moore, Catherine (December 12, 1996). "Covered Bridge to Reopen". Williamsport Sun-Gazette. p. A3.
- ^ "National Register of Historic Places Listings August 2, 2002". National Park Service. August 2, 2002. Retrieved June 5, 2013.
- ^ Brown, Daniel P. (December 15, 2011). "Tropical Cyclone Report: Tropical Storm Lee" (PDF). National Hurricane Center. Retrieved June 7, 2013.
- ^ "County Stream Gauge Details; Watershed: Loyalsock Creek; Gauge Site: Barbours (Stream Gauge 5143)". Lycoming County, Pennsylvania. Retrieved June 7, 2013.
- ^ "Wallis Run Road bridge reopens in Proctor". Williamsport Sun-Gazette. September 13, 2011. Retrieved June 7, 2013.