About

The Power House Covered Bridge, also called the School Street Covered Bridge, carries School Street over the Gihon River east of Johnson village. It is a single-span queenpost truss about 63 feet long, first built in 1872, and it carries one lane of vehicle traffic. It is one of three surviving 19th-century covered bridges in Johnson.

History

The builder is not known. The bridge takes its name from a hydroelectric station upstream that was built decades after the bridge. Repairs in 1960 addressed the abutments, approaches and floor. In 1995 steel I-beams were added under the deck to carry heavy trucks that used the road as a shortcut. In 2000 a heavy snow load collapsed the roof and side walls into the river, but the steel-reinforced deck stayed in place and guardrails kept it in use while the bridge's future was decided. Blow & Cote reconstructed the covered structure in 2002, and it reopened on June 29, 2002. The bridge was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on October 9, 1974.

Design

A queenpost truss uses two vertical posts joined by a horizontal beam, with diagonal braces running to the ends of the span. This bridge rests on stone abutments faced with concrete and has a gabled metal roof and vertical board siding, with iron rods and metal joint plates reinforcing the truss.