Hey, THANKS!!

From WHO TV - Des Moines

Madison County, May 4, 2005 - One of Madison County's famed covered bridges is getting a facelift. Volunteers from across the state will help renovate the Hogback bridge today. An arsonist set fire to the bridge back in 2002. Volunteers plan to clean it up and paint the landmark. They will also do some landscaping.

The cost of the improvements will be about $15,000. Hampton Inn is footing the bill. Its part of the hotel's 'Save-A-Landmark' program. This is a national award and only one place is selected each year. Volunteers will also install electricity to the area. That electricity will help power security cameras. The chamber of commerce has raised the money to buy the cameras. Iowa State sponsored the security at Cedar Bridge. Cedar Bridge was rebuilt after an arson fire destroyed it. There have been three notable fires over the past few years, but so far, no one has been caught. The county plans to add security cameras to five famous bridges.

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You must have voted early and often, as I asked! Thanks so much! I look forward to "my" bridge being all spruced up.

Now, for some covered bridge facts:

Do you know why the bridges were covered?
They were covered because the timbers on the bottom, the ones that actually spanned the river, were very expensive to replace. Think about it, too: with the bridge out, it was quite an inconvenence, for considerably longer than it would take nowadays. Probably the route was the only route to town, etc. It was much easier to replace the covers than to replace the bridge timbers, so they built a cover to protect them.

Also, they were covered because of the snow. Snowplows did not always exist. In the days of horses and buggies, folks used sleighs in the winter. Contrary to our romantic notions of today, sleighs were not used on grass or other bumpy terrain. They were used on roads, and the snow was rolled flat and packed down. So the sleighs glided right along on top of the hard packed snow.

But all of that snow was heavy, and would place strain on the bridges. So they covered it, so there wouldn't be a heavy layer of snow on the bridge.