Painter's Bridge

  Built in 1857 at the site of the earlier Jones' Ford, Painter's Bridge spanned the Brandywine Creek on Street Road (current Rt 926). The bridge connected Birmingham Township to the east with Pocopson Township to the west and was named for the Painter family that had large landholdings on each side of the Brandywine.

  The covered bridge was a Burr Arch type with an overall span of 184 feet with a roadway width of 14 feet 7 inches. The bridge was built by N.Y. Jester and Wm. Gamble at a cost of $4,250.
 
  Painter's Bridge was elevated well above the waters of the Brandywine Creek but the approaches were in the lowlands of the flood plain which closed the roadway in periods of extreme flooding. In winter months during floods, ice sheets would float downstream from Lenape and cross Street Road causing additional hazard.
 
 
 
  In 1902 the Supervisors of Pocopson Township commissioned stone piers be built connected with large timbers to break the ice flows. Suspended from the timbers were gates that alowed debris to pass through without clogging up the flow. In the dry periods these gates would serve to restrain the dairy cattle that were grazing on the Brandywine meadow. 
 

  Author Cornelius Weygandt notes this particular construction in his book A Passing America: “Great stone posts tapering from four feet in diameter at the base to two feet at the top hold logs cemented fast ten feet above the ground.  From these great timbers, wooden fences hang, so swung by irons that when the Brandywine is in flood, they will float on the water and let the trees and the debris brought down slip past without injury.”  (quoted Rodebaugh)

 

 

  By 1937 the bridge had fallen into a state of disrepair and the state replaced the aged wooden structure with an open four-span steel and concrete bridge on the stone abutments and piers from the original covered bridge. The four-span bridge was rehabilitated in 1974. The steel I-beam structure was 190 feet long and 26 feet wide. Before it closed for construction, the bridge was posted with a weight restriction of 26 tons and 33 tons for combination loads and carried approximately 13,200 vehicles a day.

  In 2017 PennDOT replaced the 79-year-old bridge with a new three-span structure built at a higher elevation; rebuilt and raised 1,700 feet of the roadway approaches to make them less prone to flooding; replaced the nearby culvert over Radley Run with an 84-foot twin arch concrete culvert; and realigned 800 feet of Creek Road at its northern intersection with Route 926 (Street Road).
 
  The new, aesthetically designed bridge resembles the 1937 bridge and has stone form liners covering the piers, and includes an open, higher railing.
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Image icon Painters Bridge from CCHS.jpg563.99 KB
Image icon Painters Bridge south elevation.png1.31 MB
Image icon Painters Bridge marble marker 1857.png116.75 KB
Image icon Rt 926 bridge - 1937.jpg265.09 KB
Image icon Rt926 bridge removal 2017.jpg137.94 KB
Image icon Rt 926 bridge reconstruction 2017.jpg243.85 KB
Image icon Rt926 bridge nearing completion 2017.jpg215.66 KB
Image icon Rt 926 bridge Radley Run culverts.jpg277.85 KB