About
Gibson's Covered Bridge, also called the Harmony Hill Bridge, carries Harmony Hill Road over the East Branch Brandywine Creek southeast of Downingtown, on the line between East Bradford and West Bradford Townships in Chester County. It is a Burr truss bridge built in 1872. The Theodore Burr Covered Bridge Society gives its length as 98 ft 3 in, while Wikipedia and Uncovering PA give 78 ft. It carries one-way vehicle traffic.
History
Edward H. Hall and Thomas E. Schull built the bridge in 1872. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on December 10, 1980, as part of the Covered Bridges of Chester County nomination. Flooding from the remnants of Hurricane Ida damaged it on September 1, 2021, and it was closed for a time. Uncovering PA, updated in 2023, describes it as open to one-way traffic heading west toward US 322.
Design
The Burr truss pairs a timber arch with a multiple kingpost truss. Gibson's has stepped portals and horizontal clapboard siding.
Visiting
The bridge is on Harmony Hill Road just off US 322 (Brandywine Avenue), about 2.5 miles southeast of Downingtown. Uncovering PA notes a parking lot on the northeast side that also serves the East Branch Brandywine Trail.
Sources: Gibson's Covered Bridge (Theodore Burr Covered Bridge Society of PA), Gibson's Covered Bridge (Wikipedia), Visiting the covered bridges of Chester County (Uncovering PA)
Photo: Choess, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
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