November 5, 1994
A rebuilt version of a covered bridge in the town of Foster, Rhode Island, was officially dedicated. This structure, known as Swamp Meadow Bridge, is located on Central Pike and crosses Hemlock Brook in that region of the Ocean State.
The building of the first version of Swamp Meadow Bridge had been formally proposed in 1986 and was subsequently approved by the Foster Town Council, Following the authorization of this project by the Rhode Island Department of Transportation, construction on the bridge by a crew of volunteers began on September 12, 1992. It was built over a steel bridge that had been in service there since 1953. Swamp Meadow Bridge was designed by Jed Dixon. He based his design on one that had been patented in 1820 by a Connecticut architect named Ithiel Town.
The original bridge was dedicated on May 23, 1993, and it had the distinction of being Rhode Island’s only covered bridge. On September 11 of that same year, however, this structure was destroyed by fire in an act of vandalism. Only 12 days after the destruction of Swamp Meadow Bridge, the Foster Town Council approved the construction of a replacement.
The current version of Swamp Meadow Bridge has a length of 36 feet (11 meters) and a width of 16 feet (4.9 kilometers). The bridge carries approximately 180 motor vehicles per day. (The accompanying photo of this structure was taken in 2023.)
Photo Credit: Pi.1415926535 (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pi.1415926535) – licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en
For more information on Swamp Meadow Bridge, please check out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swamp_Meadow_Bridge and https://bordersfarm.org/swamp-meadow-covered-bridge
Additional information on covered bridges in the United States is available at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_covered_bridges_in_the_United_States
A video of Swamp Meadow Bridge can be viewed at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljAZQKJILrE
Transportation History 