News

Corbin Bridge reaches its 25th anniversary, celebration planned

By BILL CHAISSON
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NEWPORT — There were once 19 covered bridges in Newport and now there are only three, although, significantly, two of them are covered railroad bridges. There are only eight covered railroad bridges in the world, according to Jackie Cote of the Newport Historical Society.

For over a year after May 23, 1993, there were only two covered bridges in Newport because arsonists burned the Corbin Bridge down to its abutments. Dean Stetson of the Newport Historical Society noted that a newspaper deliverer was the one to spot the glow in the sky and notify the authorities. Well, that night the newspaper should have been delivered earlier, because it was far too late to save the Corbin Bridge.

Arnold Graton, the bridgewright from Holderness who was eventually called upon to build a new bridge, recalled in a recent phone interview that only charred remains of the floor system were sitting in the brook. During its collapse some parts of the abutments had been moved and the heat of the fire, he said, had broken some of the stones.

The original bridge was a Town lattice truss design built in the 1840s. When it burned it was on the National Historic Register. But there were only charred beams remaining after the fire. Graton’s company built an entirely new bridge. This is unusual, he said. Usually he has 60 to 90 percent of the original structure to work with. 

Burning of covered bridges is, however, not unusual. Graton has heard that about two per year burn around the country. Readers of the 1992 novel “The Bridges of Madison County” may recall the Cedar Covered Bridge. It was burned in 2002 and then a rebuilt replica was burned in 2017.

Graton has a four-person crew, including himself. He began building wooden bridges with his father Milton in the mid 1950s. His father passed away in his late 80s about the time his son was working on the Corbin Bridge.

It is the bridgewright’s policy to accept any volunteer help from the people of the community where he is working.

“We break it down into small increments,” Graton said. “In the end we’re all just laborers.” At Newport there was, on average, one volunteer present at least a couple days every week during the nine-month project.

“We always find a spot on the team,” he said of the volunteers. “It doesn’t matter if its one hour, 10 hours or 10 days. It’s that interest that brought us here.”

The structure is put together on the ground next to the river and then  the completed bridge is dragged over the water using a team of oxen and a capstan. In 1994, when the Corbin Bridge was completed, 9,000 people turned to watch it put into place.

That kind of enthusiasm was not necessarily present in the immediate aftermath of the original bridge’s demise. “The state was willing to reconstruct a bridge,” said Stetson, “but it would have been a two-lane flat deck steel and concrete bridge.”

A group of volunteers, among other efforts, brought in Graton to address a special town meeting in November 1993. “The state won’t give you the money unless the structure meets their load specs,” he said. [The construction] would have to start below the abutments because they don’t have any rating. That kind of thing adds expense pretty quickly.”

The state would likely have replaced the one-lane covered bridge with a two-lane deck bridge, which would require it to have even greater load requirement for occasions when two trucks crossed it at the same time. That would add more expense.

“It’s usually cheaper to restore a bridge in the long run,” Graton said, “because of all those other costs.”

The bridgewright said that he doesn’t try to get involved in the local lobbying efforts, “but those involved want you to go bat for them,” so he does.

“It’s a good investment,” he said of rebuilding historic structures. “You do it for the same reasons that you go and buy an antique lamp. You hate to see everything that we grow up with going away. So much is lost, even if we try to save it.”

In his recollection, it cost a little less than $400,000 to rebuild the Corbin Bridge in a manner almost the same as the original.

Graton had to use Douglas fir, a conifer from the western United States, for the load-bearing elements of the new bridge. In the 19th century the first Corbin Bridge would have been constructed of spruce or hemlock. “They would have used local timber,” Graton said, “whatever was nearby, because they needed to get it to the site. They would have set up a sawmill right near the site.” Local spruce and hemlock big enough to build bridge supports is hard to come by today, Graton said.

The trunnells, which are the large wooden pegs that hold the lattice together, are usually made from white oak, although Graton said he has seen maple used or even hornbeam, although the latter is rare.

The siding on the bridge is made from white pine.

The Town lattice truss is a widespread and popular design. It was patented by Ithiel Town and used all over the country.

When you look look at the bridge from the side, you can see that there is a slight arch to the span, which gives it its strength.

As the bridges age the arch may diminish, but Graton said he’s never seen one “go below a straight line.”

 

25 years later

The hauling of the new bridge across the creek was broadcast nationwide, according to Stetson. “But the glory of the event diminished after a few years,” he said.

According to Patrick O’Grady’s “Spanning Generations: the Home-coming of the Corbin Covered Bridge,” the November 1993 special town meeting was a bit of a reckoning. It was there that the people of Newport voted not only to replace the bridge with a replica, but also to retain local control over the project. The Newport Historical Society pledged its support and inaugurated a fundraising effort to supplement the replacement insurance coverage.

Among those who helped build the new bridge and turned out for the homecoming celebration in 1994 were a large number of children. Stetson would like to bring them back to the bridge as adults for the 25th anniversary celebration in October.

The end of the turf runway at Parlin Field is not far from Corbin Bridge. The 25th anniversary celebration will be held on the runway. Stetson said that the vendor fee is being kept low to encourage participation and it will be of course free to the public.

“The airport has granted permission to shut down the turf runway for the event,” Stetson said, “but the other runway will be open; there will be some aviation activity during the event.”

The bridge is synonymous with Newport, according to Stetson. “Whenever you go out there,” he said, “there is at least one car parked and someone is fishing or walking their dog.”

The Corbin Bridge is regularly adorned with wreaths and flowers, and since its reconstruction, the land around it has been maintained as a park.

Part of the fundraising effort associated with the upcoming “new homecoming” celebration is to have money to pay for traditional bridge signs (e.g. “Walk your horse”) and to erect interpretive signs.

Stetson has even rounded up some of the few remaining pieces of the old bridge and has plans to carve them into souvenirs that will be available at the October 12 event.

As Arnold Graton said, “When you rebuild a bridge, history starts all over again. It’s 25 years old now and one day it will be 100 years old.”

Again.

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