Wooddale Bridge
New Castle County, Wooddale. Built c. 1850, rebuilt 2007-08, 72 ft. long. A Town lattice truss bridge that once served the historic Delaware Iron Works, rebuilt with flood-resistant Bongossi wood after Tropical Storm Henri.
Wooddale Bridge crosses Red Clay Creek at Wooddale in New Castle County, one of just two survivors — alongside the nearby Ashland Bridge — of the thirteen covered bridges once marked along the creek on an 1868 map. Built around 1850 on a Town lattice truss design, the 72-foot bridge served as an essential transportation link for Wooddale residents and provided access to the nearby Delaware Iron Works, a sheet-iron rolling mill operated by Philadelphia entrepreneur Alan Wood that ran from 1814 until roughly 1890; traces of the old ironworks can still be found just north of the bridge site.
Added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1973, the bridge suffered a serious setback in 2003, when flooding from Tropical Storm Henri destroyed it outright. The Delaware Department of Transportation rebuilt the bridge in 2007-08 with a series of flood-resistant modifications, raising the roadway five feet above its original height and framing the new structure in highly durable Bongossi wood, an African hardwood chosen specifically to withstand future flood events better than the original timber ever could.
