Barronvale Covered Bridge

About

Barronvale Covered Bridge, also called Barron's Mill Bridge, crosses Laurel Hill Creek in Middlecreek Township, west of Somerset. It is a Burr arch truss 162 ft 3 in long and 13 ft 10 in wide, the longest of Somerset County's ten covered bridges. The bridge is closed to vehicles and open to foot traffic only.

History

The National Register record dates the bridge to 1902 and names Cassimer Cramer as the builder. The date is disputed. A sign at the bridge reads 1830, and the history compiled on coveredbridges.net describes an 1828 petition by Peter Kooser for a bridge to serve his gristmill, a first bridge completed in 1830 with Cramer as contractor, and a repair in 1845 that added arches at a county cost of $750. The same source says the present stone supports were built in 1907, a cedar shingle roof went on in the early 1930s, and the current metal roof was installed in 1986. Uncoveringpa.com considers 1830 unlikely and 1902 the more likely date. The bridge was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on December 11, 1980.

Design

A Burr arch truss pairs a long timber arch on each side with a multiple kingpost truss, the two bolted together to share the load. Barronvale's roof is metal, installed in 1986.

Visiting

The bridge is privately owned, but visitors are allowed to walk to it and around it. Parking is at a pull-off on Ream Road on the western bank of Laurel Hill Creek. King's Covered Bridge is about a mile to the south.

Sources: Barronvale Bridge (Wikipedia), Barronvale Covered Bridge (coveredbridges.net), Covered Bridges of Somerset County (Uncovering PA)

Photo: Photochick234, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.