McGees Mills Covered Bridge

About

McGees Mills Covered Bridge carries Covered Bridge Road over the West Branch Susquehanna River at McGees Mills in Bell Township, Clearfield County, near Mahaffey. It is a single-span Burr truss bridge built in 1873, 109 feet long according to Wikipedia and coveredbridges.net (Dale Travis lists 116 feet). It is Clearfield County's only covered bridge and is open to traffic.

History

Thomas A. McGee built the bridge in 1873 of local hand-hewn white pine, at an original cost of $175. Timber rafts floated under it on the river until the last one passed in 1938. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980. Coveredbridges.net lists renovations in 1978 and 1994, the second after heavy snowfall damage; Dale Travis gives rebuild dates of 1988 and 1994. Clearfield County owns and maintains it.

Design

A Burr truss pairs a multiple kingpost truss with a long timber arch on each side. This bridge is heavily reinforced, with steel mending plates at the arch joints, angle irons on other timbers, and a five-foot laminated plank wall banded with steel plates along its length.

Visiting

From the junction of US 219 and Route 36 in McGees Mills, go southwest 0.1 mile on US 219, then south on Covered Bridge Road to the bridge. Vehicles can drive through it.

Sources: McGees Mills Covered Bridge (Wikipedia), McGees Mill (coveredbridges.net), McGees Mill (Dale J. Travis)

Photo: Doug Kerr from Albany, NY, United States, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.