Wooddale Bridge is a

covered bridge A covered bridge is a timber-truss bridge with a roof, decking, and siding, which in most covered bridges create an almost complete enclosure. The purpose of the covering is to protect the wooden structural members from the weather. Uncovered woo ...

over

Red Clay Creek Red Clay Creek is a tributary of White Clay Creek, running through southeastern Pennsylvania and northern Delaware in the United States. As of 2000, portions of the creek are under wildlife habitat protection. Course The East and West branche ...

Wooddale Wooddale is a settlement in Newfoundland and Labrador Newfoundland and Labrador (; french: Terre-Neuve-et-Labrador; frequently abbreviated as NL) is the easternmost province of Canada, in the country's Atlantic region. The province comprises ...

New Castle County New Castle County is the northernmost of the three counties of the U.S. state of Delaware (New Castle, Kent, and Sussex). As of the 2020 census, the population was 570,719, making it the most populous county in Delaware, with nearly 60% of the ...

Delaware Delaware ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Maryland to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and New Jersey and the Atlantic Ocean to its east. The state takes its name from the adjacent Del ...

. It is one of three covered bridges in the state of Delaware along with the very similar Ashland Covered Bridge and the Smith Bridge. It and the Ashland bridge remain, of the thirteen bridges along the Red Clay Creek that were marked on an 1868 map.

Style

The Wooddale Bridge is a Town

lattice truss A lattice bridge is a form of truss bridge that uses many small, closely spaced diagonal elements forming a lattice. The lattice Truss Bridge was patented in 1820 by architect Ithiel Town. Originally a design to allow a substantial bridge to be ma ...

bridge following a design by

Ithiel Town Ithiel Town (October 3, 1784 – June 13, 1844) was an American architect and civil engineer. One of the first generation of professional architects in the United States, Town made significant contributions to American architecture in the ...

and is approximately long. It originally sat on mortared rough-cut stone

abutments An abutment is the substructure at the ends of a bridge span or dam supporting its superstructure. Single-span bridges have abutments at each end which provide vertical and lateral support for the span, as well as acting as retaining walls ...

, with rock-slab-capped poured concrete guard walls. The floor of the bridge was diagonal planking, with vertical boarding on the sides that had square window openings to expose the white painted truss on either side.

History

The original bridge was built about 1850 and was added to the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

in 1973. It was destroyed by flooding from

Tropical Storm Henri The name Henri has been used for six tropical cyclones in the Atlantic Ocean: *Hurricane Henri (1979), took unusual route around Yucatán Peninsula, caused no significant damage * Tropical Storm Henri (1985), crossed Long Island as a weak storm, ...

in 2003. The bridge was rebuilt by the

Delaware Department of Transportation The Delaware Department of Transportation (DelDOT) is an agency of the U.S. state of Delaware. The Secretary of Transportation is Nicole Majeski. The agency was established in 1917 and has its headquarters in Dover. The department's responsibil ...

in 2007–8 with design modifications to make it more flood-resistant. The bridge reopened on December 15, 2008, after it was rebuilt using Bongossi wood and the roadway was raised five feet to protect against future floods and the openings enlarged. In total the rebuilding and road work was US$3.374 million. The bridge became a geocaching location in 2011.

References

Road bridges on the National Register of Historic Places in Delaware Bridges in New Castle County, Delaware Bridges completed in 1850 Covered bridges in Delaware National Register of Historic Places in New Castle County, Delaware Covered bridges on the National Register of Historic Places in Delaware Wooden bridges in Delaware Lattice truss bridges in the United States {{Delaware-bridge-struct-stub

Style

History

See also

References