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Staats Mill Covered Bridge

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1887, H. T. Hartley. 1983, Emory L. Kemp. At entrance to Cedar Lakes Conference Center
  • Staats Mill Covered Bridge (State Historic Preservation Office, West Virginia Division of Culture and History)

This is one of West Virginia's most picturesque, most accessible, and certainly most secure covered bridges. It was moved to Cedar Lakes in 1983 from its original location on the Tug Fork of Mill Creek, some five miles away, where it would have been inundated by a proposed lake. The move was overseen by the USDA Soil Conservation Service, approved by the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, and supervised by the West Virginia Historic Preservation Officer. An artificially created pond provides an appropriate and authentic setting.

The bridge, almost 100 feet long, uses the Long truss system, a design patented by Stephen Long in 1830 and characterized by Xbraced struts in side wall panels. Vertically sided walls, painted red, stop short of the roofline on both sides, providing ample ventilation. In 1887 the bridge and its abutments cost $1,724. In 1983 the cost of removal and rebuilding was more than $104,000.

Writing Credits

Author: 
S. Allen Chambers Jr.
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Data

What's Nearby

Heritage House
Cedar Lakes (FFA-FHA State Camp and Conference Center)
Clerc-Carson House
Jackson County Courthouse
Armstrong House

Citation

S. Allen Chambers Jr., "Staats Mill Covered Bridge", [Ripley, West Virginia], SAH Archipedia, eds. Gabrielle Esperdy and Karen Kingsley, Charlottesville: UVaP, 2012—, http://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/WV-01-JA4.1.

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