Mount Vernon News

BRINKHAVEN — In 1993, the Mohican Valley Trail had only one insurmountable obstacle: The Mohican River. An old, defunct Penn Central railroad bridge crossed the river, surrounded by woods and across U.S. 62 from the village of Brinkhaven. It was sturdy enough to become part of the trail, towering over the water on steel girders and concrete piers, but it wasn’t passable for walkers and bicyclists.

Four members of the Knox County Chapter of the Ohio Horsemen’s Council — Wanda Dible and Mary Ridgway of Howard, Lynda Mazza of Mount Vernon and Bill Crawford of Danville — had an idea: To reconstruct the old bridge so the trail could cross it. They and many other volunteers negotiated with the railroad to purchase the 58 acres of land around the bridge, wrote a grant, raised funds and enlisted the help of public officials.

At one of their early meetings, Crawford suggested building a covered bridge atop the old one. Others told him he was dreaming. Then Amy Stewart of Mount Vernon said, “Yes, that’s it, we will call it ‘The Bridge of Dreams.’” And everyone agreed. They also decided the 310-foot-long bridge would be open to horses and horse-drawn vehicles, as well as to walkers and bicyclists.

“There had been a lot of talk about tearing the superstructure out,” said Crawford. “It was the local eyesore. When people heard that we wanted to build a covered bridge on it, they said, ‘You must be crazy.’”

Bill and Carolyn Crawford were married on the Bridge of Dreams in June 2005, on Carolyn’s birthday. Carolyn remembered that during the ceremony her 2-year-old grandson said, “Look!” and pointed to a deer watching them from the other end of the bridge.

The Crawfords visited the bridge recently in the company of Mazza, Ridgway and Kim Marshall and Doug McLarnan of the Knox County Park District, to reminisce.

Cleanup was a necessity in the early days of the project. The riverbed was a dump site, said Mazza.

“There was trash everywhere, mixed with the brush. We had to clean all that up and we hauled countless truckloads of trash out of here,” she said.

Mel Troyer of Mohican Valley Construction, who lives nearby on the trail, was low bidder to construct the bridge, to build the wood frame, floor and metal roof on top of the original piers and girders.

“His kids use the trail to go to school,” said Marshall. “And just in time for the bicentennial, Mel and his boys are going to spruce up the bridge.”

Marhsal said the Troyers are going to stain the outside of the walls when the weather breaks.

The bridge floor is 40 feet above the water, when the river is at its normal level, and the roof is 16 feet higher.

“Imagine being up on that roof, working,” said McLarnan about the Troyer family’s on-high construction.

The planners made sure the bridge plans included the specification that the opening in one side of the covered bridge would be taller than the other. That way, the handicapped, walkers and bicyclists can see the river as they pass, but horses on the other side — the one with the narrower opening — couldn’t look down at the water, realize they are 40 feet above the ground, and spook.

“You’re going to have a difference experience on this trail,” said Marshall, “because it’s open to Amish buggies and horses.”

She noted that such modes of transportation are prohibited from most public trails. Locals often refer to the Mohican Valley Trail as “The Amish Highway.”

Mazza said she noticed that visitors to the bridge were from different parts of Ohio, but were rarely local folks.

“Let’s put out a log,” Marshall recalled saying in the fall of 2007, “because we’re getting way more people than we ever thought we would.”

From Sept. 20 through Nov. 26, 2007, 986 people visited the bridge and signed the log. They included visitors from Australia, Canada, England, Italy, Hungary, the Netherlands and the Philippines, Portugal, Scotland and Thailand, as well as Americans from 36 states.

The bridge draws railroad buffs and covered bridge enthusiasts, said Bill Crawford.

“They like to come out and walk these railroad corridors and think about what it was like to ride the rails in those glory days, when you could ride from Columbus to Cleveland,” he said.

The view from Knox County’s only covered bridge takes in the outskirts of the village of Brinkhaven, the U.S. 62 bridge, the rusted former U.S. 62 bridge in the distance, the surrounding woods and trails and the old railway bed of the defunct Wally Railroad.

“My great-grandfather worked on the Wally Railroad,” said McLarnan. “They had no idea that someday there would be cars and trucks going up and down the road at 60 mph. The same way we can’t envision the future. All we can do is have things in place for the future. Who knows, by then there might be hovering bicycles and skateboards on the trail. This bridge is an investment that will go forward for the future.”

“I think we’re going to get a lot more folks to see this cultural treasure,” Marshall said. “The response to the bridge has been overwhelmingly positive.”

“This bridge was built on dreams and lots of hard work,” said Mazza. “It has been quite a project. It’s in our hearts and it always will be.”

The Mohican Valley Trail will eventually stretch 34 miles across Knox County, said Bill Crawford, and become a regional part of the Ohio Erie Trail, which will run, he said, from the football stadium in Cincinnati to the stadium in Cleveland, from the Miami River to the Cuyahoga.

The Knox County On High series will continue on Monday, Feb. 25.