Sandy Creek Covered Bridge State Historic Site in Jefferson County, Missouri, is administered by the Missouri Department of Natural Resources' Division of State Parks to preserve the Sandy Creek Covered Bridge. The bridge is one of four remaining covered bridges in Missouri, which once numbered about 30. It is a relatively rare example of a Howe truss bridge, one of three in Missouri. It is named for Sandy Creek which it crosses.
Jefferson county embarked on a building program following the American Civil War and paid John H. Morse $2000 for the construction of Sandy Creek Covered Bridge in 1872. It is one of six bridges built that year for Hillsboro to Lemay Ferry road to connect the county seat of Hillsboro to St. Louis County. It was destroyed by high water in 1886, and was rebuilt for $899 by Henry Steffin using half of the original timbers and the original abutments. The bridge is 74.5-foot (22.7 m), 18 feet 10 inches (5.7 m) wide and an height of 13-foot (4.0 m).
The bridge came under the protection of the state parks system when the state legislature passed an act in 1967 declaring all remaining covered bridges in the state to be state historic sites. Jefferson County released the bridge to the state in 1968, and it was officially listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1970. A major restoration project restored the bridge to its original appearance in 1984.
The bridge is now open only to pedestrian traffic. The parks-administered historic site of which it is the centerpiece is a 205-acre (0.83 km2) day use facility with picnic tables, toilet facilities, and an interpretive display.
Read more about Sandy Creek Covered Bridge State Historic Site: See Also
Famous quotes containing the words sandy, creek, covered, bridge, state, historic and/or site:
“So near along life’s stream are the fountains of innocence and youth making fertile its sandy margin; and the voyageur will do well to replenish his vessels often at these uncontaminated sources.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The only law was that enforced by the Creek Lighthorsemen and the U.S. deputy marshals who paid rare and brief visits; or the “two volumes of common law” that every man carried strapped to his thighs.”
—State of Oklahoma, U.S. relief program (1935-1943)
“The little toy dog is covered with dust,
But sturdy and stanch he stands;
And the little toy soldier is red with rust,
And the musket moulds in his hands.
Time was when the little toy dog was new,
And the soldier was passing fair;
And that was the time when our Little Boy Blue
Kissed them and put them there.”
—Eugene Field (1850–1895)
“What need the bridge much broader than the flood?”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“I do not think that there is any doubt about where I stand in respect to boycotts. If there is, I will just state what I think about them. They are illegal and ought to be suppressed. I would never countenance that which recognizes their legality.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)
“Never is a historic deed already completed when it is done but always only when it is handed down to posterity. What we call “history” by no means represents the sum total of all significant deeds.... World history ... only comprises that tiny lighted sector which chanced to be placed in the spotlight by poetic or scholarly depictions.”
—Stefan Zweig (18811942)
“It’s given new meaning to me of the scientific term black hole.”
—Don Logan, U.S. businessman, president and chief executive of Time Inc. His response when asked how much his company had spent in the last year to develop Pathfinder, Time Inc.’S site on the World Wide Web. Quoted in New York Times, p. D7 (November 13, 1995)