Bucks County’s oldest covered bridge is getting a major makeover in the next year, as Perkasie Boroug
09/06/2024
The project to rehabilitate the South Perkasie Covered Bridge will begin next month. This is the full press release from the Borough. Federal and state grants, along with local donations. will fund the project.
Home Resources News PERKASIE BOROUGH AWARDS COVERED BRIDGE DESIGN AND ENGINEERING CONTRACT Sep 6, 2024 General News General News Events Parks & Recreation Holidays All Articles Perkasie Borough has selected an engineering firm to oversee the return of its historic 1832 covered bridge to public servi...
09/16/2021
How it was done.
09/14/2021
How do you lift a 30 ton covered bridge - very slowly!
09/11/2021
The crew is getting ready to stabilize the bridge next week so we can get it secure. Please do not go near the bridge in the off hours as this project is underway.
09/04/2021
The official Covered Bridge update from Perkasie Borough:
The Covered Bridge is still off its abutments. Please respect the fencing in place and stay back. The structural engineer has inspected the structure and a better fence will be installed soon. Our number 1 goal right now is to make the area safe! We will then continue working on a plan for rebuilding the bridge. The Borough has a $100,000 historic preservation grant, plus $117,000 raised by the Perkasie Historical Society. Before Ida, the plan was to complete the design this fall with construction in the spring. We hope to know in the next few weeks if that schedule is still possible.
DONATIONS DIRECTLY TO THE PERKASIE HISTORICAL SOCIETY WOULD BE APPRECIATED!
Here is where you can donate to the Perkasie Historical Society to help the bridge:
Help support the Perkasie Historical Society by becoming a member, donating and volunteering to preserve Perkasie's rich history.
09/15/2020
Details on our $100,000 state grant for the South Perkasie Covered Bridge in the News-Herald.
PERKASIE — When the South Perkasie Covered Bridge restoration begins, the company contracted to do the job will put metal beams in lengthwise and jack the bridge up off its
09/10/2020
The Pennsylvania Historical & Museum Commission has awarded a $100,000 grant to Perkasie Borough, ensuring the survival of the 1832 South Perkasie Covered Bridge.
Prior to the grant award, the Perkasie Historical Society had raised more than $100,000 in donations to match the state grant. In addition, the Save the Bridge coalition of the Borough, the Historical Society and the Bucks County Covered Bridge Society held fundraisers and gathered nearly 2,000 online signatures supporting the project to fully restore Bucks County’s oldest covered bridge.
Today, the project is a reality and the process will soon begin to repair the legendary 188-year-old structure. Over time, its timbers have shifted as the bridge became out of balance. Recently, it was swamped by flood waters. Qualified historic preservationists will straighten the bridge, repair its damaged timbers, and add a fireproof coating.
The South Perkasie Covered Bridge is one of the best examples of an intact 19th century covered bridge in America. The Bucks County Commissioners condemned the bridge in 1958, but the Perkasie Historical Society saved the bridge by raising money to move it to nearly Lenape Park. It took eight days to move the bridge and the event made national headlines. The society then gave the bridge to Perkasie Borough for safe keeping.
This act of historic preservation at a grassroots level struck a nerve across the state and greatly affected government policies targeted at demolishing covered bridges.
One of the bridge’s “saviors,” Marion Baum, wrote about the community project the following year, calling it, “The Covered Bridge That Refused To Die.”
She called the move “a community achievement unique perhaps in the annals of Pennsylvania and rarely if ever matched in this country. … Never has the name and achievements of the Borough even remotely approached the widespread publicity and claim it received during the brief eight days when the old bridge was moved.” That publicity peaked when the Associated Press ran pictures of the bridge move that appeared in many national newspapers.
“What cannot be compiled are the uncounted hours adding up to many days given by scores of volunteers whose only purpose was a prideful interest in a community project that had to be done quickly or never,” Baum said.
At the 1959 bridge rededication ceremony, Hal Clark of the Delaware Valley Protective Association spoke about the importance of saving the bridge. “The Perkasie Covered Bridge project helped to bring thousands of dollars of favorable publicity to the Perkasie Community and Bucks County plus an augmented stream of well-paying tourists,” Clark said. “Fifty years from now the descendants of those who helped preserve this bridge in Lenape Park will bless your memory.”
That memory, Clark said, was “the bridge’s legacy as a ‘kissing bridge,’ a tunnel of love and a good place to save a load of hay on a rainy day. It carried a sign reading ‘$5 fine for any person riding or driving over this bridge faster than a walk or smoking segars on.’ It was a community center where affairs of state were settled, gossip exchanged and circus posters studied and it was a fine place for the kids to fish in its shade. In one way or another it had a part in the great days in history, the Mexican War, Civil War and elections.”
Today, a new generation of community members has pitched in their time, their money and their interest to give the old bridge a new lease on life. Hopefully, fifty years from now the tradition will continue. We would not expect anything less from a community symbolized by “The Covered Bridge That Refused To Die.”
08/04/2020
Video from today’s flooding at Lenape Park.
08/04/2020
Some damage to its siding but the Covered Bridge appears to be OK.
07/21/2020
Here's a look at our "sister bridge" in Gettysburg. Sachs Bridge is 7 feet longer than the South Perkasie Covered Bridge, with a similar Lattice Truss, with different siding. It carried the Union I Corps and Lee's Army of Northern Virginia at the battle scene.
03/21/2020
What do we do during a semi-quarantine? Take pictures of Greisermer and Pleasantville covered bridges in the Oley valley, of course!
Be the first to know and let us send you an email when South Perkasie Covered Bridge Project posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.
Bucks County’s oldest covered bridge is getting a major makeover in the next year, as Perkasie Borough creates the South Perkasie Covered Bridge Outdoor Museum.
The Borough will partner with the Perkasie Historical Society and the Bucks County Covered Bridge Society on the project, providing their expertise as part of educational and interpretive experience critical to the outdoor museum’s success. The project will require long-needed structural repairs to the bridge, which was built in 1832.
The Perkasie Historical Society made national headlines when it moved the South Perkasie covered bridge to Lenape Park in August 1958, after Bucks County officials decided to replace it with a modern structure. Perkasie Borough assumed its ownership in August 1959. Since then, the red bridge has served as the community’s unofficial symbol – and most-photographed location. The bridge is the third-oldest covered bridge in Pennsylvania and the third-oldest Town Lattice covered bridge in the United States.
A year ago, the Perkasie Historical Society set a goal to raise $20,000 to go toward the cost to repair and stabilize the nearly 188-year-old South Perkasie Covered Bridge. The Society, through a grassroots effort, has already surpassed its initial goal with numerous donations from the community, a $5,000 matching grant, raffles and a “Night at The Perk.” The Society recently announced two new matching fund grants of $5,000 each.
The interpretative experience will showcase the history of Bucks County’s covered bridges since 1832, and the Perkasie Historical Society’s much-publicized efforts to “save the bridge” in one of the nation’s earliest acts of covered bridge historic preservation. A digital learning experience, including the history of the 51 covered bridges that once existed in Bucks County, will complement the outdoor museum site.
Perkasie Borough will apply for a $100,000 Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission Keystone Historic Preservation Construction Grant matching grant for the project.
The Perkasie Historical Society, a 501c3 non-profit, is currently accepting donations to fund its contribution to the covered bridge museum project. For further information about the Perkasie Historical Society, visit its web site at www.perkasiehistory.org or follow it on Facebook at @perkasiehistory.org.
Perkasie Borough also will set up a dedicated fund for major contributions from businesses and organizations willing to sponsor key parts of the project. Interested parties can send inquiries to [email protected] to learn about different giving levels.
