About
The Paper Mill Village Bridge, also called the Paper Mill Bridge and the Bennington Falls Covered Bridge, carries Murphy Road over the Walloomsac River northwest of downtown Bennington. It stands next to a former paper mill building on the south side of Vermont Route 67A, just south of the Bennington College campus. It is a single-span Town lattice truss bridge with a one-lane, 15-foot roadway. Sources give its length as 125 feet (Wikipedia) or 131 feet (Dale Travis's list). It is open to vehicles.
History
Charles F. Sears, from a family of local bridge builders, built the bridge in 1889. Its design is similar to the nearby Silk Covered Bridge, sometimes attributed to his father, Benjamin Sears. The bridge was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on August 28, 1973. It was closed to motor traffic in 1986, taken down in December 1999 and rebuilt in 2000.
Design
The Town lattice truss is a web of crisscrossed planks. The bridge sits on stone abutments partly faced in concrete, with vertical board siding on the sides and horizontal flushboard siding on the portals. Several truss members are doubled, and extra floor beams were added.
Visiting
The bridge is on Murphy Road just off Route 67A and carries one lane of traffic.
Sources: Paper Mill Village Bridge (Wikipedia), Dale J. Travis Vermont covered bridge list, Paper Mill Bridge (Earthly Photos)
Location
Murphy Road, Bennington, VermontSimilar Bridges in category
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