Covered Bridges and arsonists
71Arson is the main reason so many historical covered bridges are no longer around. Arson ranks up there with the other devastating cause, Mother Nature. Now while there is nothing that can protect anything from Mother Nature, arson is very preventable. Why people burn things that aren't theirs is a mystery to everyone. The arsonists get nothing from burning a public structure, no insurance, nothing in return but they cause a lot of grief and cause communities and thousands of people a sense of loss.
There were several Covered Bridges in Pennsylvania that were destroyed by arson. In Adams County there was Conewago Chapel Covered bridge which was destroyed in June 14, 1985. This bridge was built in 1899. For 86 years people have used this bridge and many have admired it and photographed it. At almost 100 feet long, it didn't take long for it to go up in flames.
Another covered bridge that was destroyed was Ryot Covered bridge in Bedford County On August 14, 2002, this bridge was 71 feet long, and has been restored.
Bucks County, Pennsylvania has had more than one bridge damaged and destroyed by arson. Moods Covered bridge was destroyed on June 22, 2004. This was done by six men ages 21 and 21 burned the bridge. It has been reported that at 3:30am on the morning of June 22, 2004 the bridge was set afire. Moods Covered bridge is slated to be rebuilt in 2007. This is a huge task with the bridge that was built in 1874 is about 120 feet long.
Knecht's Covered Bridge has been the most recent Arson attempt. This is the second time that this bridge has been damaged by arson. The first time was in 2004. The damage was estimated at $70 thousand dollars. The second fire was started by 5 people. 3 of them were volunteer fire fighters for the county. The ages of these arsonists were between 17 and 19. Luckily this fire didn't do much damage. At one time Bucks County had 36 bridges. Now it only has 11 left standing. Every year they have fund raisers to raise money to protect and restore the bridges, unneeded expense of repairing a bridge that has been damaged due to arson, is never included in the budget.
Bucks County sadly lost several bridges that were burnt beyond repaid. Haupts Mill which was built in 1875 and was 107 feet long. This bridge was destroyed on January 14, 1985. It was never rebuilt, and Twining Ford or Scholfield Ford Bridge which was built in 1836 or 1873 (unsure of date) was burned beyond repair by an arsonist on October 7, 1991. This bridge was 166 feet long with 2 spans which equaled 155 feet.
Westmoreland County had a nice bridge Bell's Mill which survived an arson attempt. This bridge was built in 1850 and is 107 feet long. This bridge is a survivor, it survived fire and flooding. The fire was in 1980 the bridge has since been restored and is open to the public.
After the arson attempt Pennsylvania has introduced a bill that mandates a one year jail term for anyone attempting to burn a covered bridge or other historical building. This is a step in the right direction. Maybe next time before a historical building is set afire they will think before doing it.
While I have talked about several bridges that were damaged or destroyed by arson, there are many others that I haven't discussed. There were many in other states that are no longer around that I didn't talk about. But arson is a senseless act, burning a structure that is historical is so asinine. These bridges have been around for almost 100 years, some have been around for more than 100 years, and we can never replace them, or rebuild them back to original condition. Hopefully more states will be like Pennsylvania, and make the penalties more severe for people attempting to burn a bridge or any other historical structure.
Photos of these covered bridges, as well as other covered bridges can be found at FMY Photos. These photos have been restored from 35mm slides and now are online.
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GEOTRAX SWITCHIN SIGNS COVERED BRIDGE *NEW*
Current Bid: $17.99
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Old World Christmas -Covered Bridge Ornament, NEW
Current Bid: $11.00
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Pennsylvania State Ornament Amish Buggy Covered Bridge
Current Bid: $13.95
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COVERED BRIDGE OLD WORLD CHRISTMAS GLASS ORNAMENT 20036
Current Bid: $11.39
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N-SCALE COVERED BRIDGE! DETAILED LAZER-CUT!
Current Bid: $29.87
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BACHMANN PLASTICVILLE COVERED BRIDGE O SCALE BLDG KIT
Current Bid: $18.95
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- Website is now live
I have worked all weekend on the website. But I'm happy to say that its now live. It's not totally finished but it's about 80% done. What we changed. - We changed hosting companies. The photos are no longer hosted by Smugmug. This is now going to allow us to have more pages indexed in Google, and you will be able to find more of the images in Google Image search. - We added some extra links such as adsense, and advertisers that you may be interested in. We don't collect any money from the photos, we are hoping that this way will give us enough money to pay for hosting and upkeep on the sites. - We have the site set up so it loads faster. You don't have to click through 20 pages to get the photo that you want. We have them all loaded on one page now. So far with testing it seems to load fast with DSL or Cable Modem. We haven't tested it with dial up connections. - We made less categories and galleries. We think it will be less confusing with less categories. The nice thing is now you can see ALL the galleries on EVERY page. So you don't have to go back to the home page to choose a different gallery.- Quick overview of photos. If you Want to see all the bridges we have in the county, you now can do it from one page. If you want to see a bigger version of that photo, or read more about that photo you can click on the photo and get the bigger photo and the history of the bridge or the photo. -Quick Links Across the Top. These take you to the most popular galleries. Notice: This will pull up all the categories with the galleries and will load slower while all the smaller photos load on the page. -Shopping at Ebay from the site: you can now click on the link at the left to shop at ebay for items containing bridges, mills, and barns. It will take you to Ebay to purchase but I did all the searching and will only bring in the most up to date items for you. This will change hourly. - About the Password Protected Pages: When at smugmug I had family sections that Grandpap took of the immediate family photos. These were hid pretty well there I still have these on the new site, but unless your family you won't be able to see them. There are MANY unflattering photos of our family shown there, trust me your not missing much. Whats left to do:- I want to organize the photos by years within the counties. So when you look at the zillions of photos of Ebenezer Covered Bridge, you can see how it changed over the years. and not see it being moved after you see it already set up at the new location. -I want to get more information on the photos, or link to Lost Bridges.org for all the information on the bridge itself. I personally feel that I will be linking to Lost Bridges because all the research that they have on the bridges, I could never duplicate it on my site. - Finish uploading and databasing the rest of the photos. This will be done over the next few weeks. It has been a long weekend for me, All the photos needed uploaded again to the new server, then all the information needed typed in again. So I'm going to take a few days off away from the site and work my full time job, then work on it again next weekend.- Correct spelling errors and other errors I made over the weekend. Mostly I probably have a zillion spelling errors. Sometimes its because I simply can't spell, or it could be because I wasn't able to read well enough the information off the slide. But then - I can blame it on the keyboard... Which I think I will. All errors is because of the keyboard. :) Sometime this week Smugmug will be canceled. For me it's bitter-sweet. If it wasn't for that site, I would of never had all these photos organized the way that they are. I never had any problems with them, in fact I would highly recommend them to store photos. The reason that I moved them is for the fact that I make no money off this site, and I simply couldn't afford to host them there any longer. If you are looking for a site to host your photos, do consider SmugMug. You will not be unhappy at all. If you have a problem or a technical question they will respond to you in a matter of hours, not days like most places. I hope that you like the new site. I am very pleased with the way it turned out for being done so quick. I think it's much better layout and easier to navigate. If you would like to show some of the photos on your site, you can contact me at fmyphotos@gmail.com and I will work with you to get them to you. If you notice that all photos are now able to be saved to your computer, I am not even going to protect them from being downloaded at this time. But if you do snatch a picture from me, please at least give credit back to the site. Thanks!Judy www.fmyphotos.com - 13 months ago
- Website Updating
Over Thanksgiving day weekend I will be moving FMY Photos to a new host and it will have a new look! I hope to have it live by December 1st, with most of the photos move over by then. Today I started the long process, and Murphy's Law is right here with me today. Anything and Everything that could go wrong has. But I think I have it mostly figured out, and should be able to move right along with building the site this weekend. At the new site, I still have a link to Smugmug where the photos are still hosted at this time. It's just too expensive to keep them there, so I have no choice but to move them if I want to still show them. So if you try to get to FMY PHOTOS and see a new design, or a half-done website this is why. It's still a work in progress. And Right now I am working full time, so it's going to take about a week to move everything over to the new site. Unfortunately I have no choice but to have the site live while I am doing this. So you may see some pretty weird things while I am fixing things. But it will all be worth it.www.fmyphotos.com - 13 months ago
- Photos will be used in Documentry
I am in contact with someone who wants to use some of the photos for a documentry. I am excited that his photos will be in film! I can hardly wait. They will start out with the Washington County PA photoe which there are allot of them, and then move on to other counties. I will update you when the documentry is finished and will give links!www.fmyphotos.com - 2 years ago
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James Palmer says:
7 months ago
when we can send a man to the moon it would seem that we could spend some insurance money to protect our past. My past was spent in Rushville Indiana. We had covered bridges. Spend your time on getting the tecnology to save the bridges. Yes and the money. Cameras, motion detection ,pumps and smoke detection and other things to be monitored It will take a spearhead spending gobs of time. Great job,tell me how to bid. Spend more of your time on protection.Tell me what progress in this area and I will contribute.