Blackford Bridge to get new life in Henderson Park
PROTECTED CONTENT
If you’re a current subscriber, log in below. If you would like to subscribe, please click the subscribe tab above.
Username and Password Help
Please enter your email and we will send your username and password to you.
By Dave Taylor
The 100-year-old dilapidated bridge spanning Blackford Creek is set for a leisurely, yet busy, new phase in life after the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet chose to donate the bridge to a Henderson park where it will become a centerpiece of an expanding public walking trail.
After a public call for proposals for reusing the bridge, Sandy Lee Watkins Park in Henderson was chosen the winner, where the bridge will join another older bridge already there.
“We are developing a 535-cre park in Henderson county,” said Bill Hubiak, an engineer with Henderson County Road Department. “This is the second bridge that we are procuring and it will allow us to finish the last half a mile of a 5k loop of our existing walking trail.
“So it will tie in with our walking trail system and we will have two antique bridges after this one’s put up,” he said.
The Blackford Creek bridge is a pony truss style bridge built around 1919 and is believed to have been part of the early route of Highway 60 when it was just gravel.
It was closed last year after the weight limit was lowered. It was originally slated to be replaced, but after meeting with the fiscal court and finding out that it was rarely used, the KYTC decided to just eliminate the bridge all together.
But eliminating its use didn’t mean the bridge disappeared, so they sought to give the public a chance to save the history and potentially get some value out of a relic.
KYTC advertised for proposals with a December 1 deadline, and received seven proposals for various uses, including one from the city of Louisville and one from a restaurant that wanted to use the bridge for customers to sit on.
But Henderson’s plan to let it remain a bridge but in a scenic new setting was a perfect use, and it’ll be one of multiple antique bridges eventually.
“We actually have a need for a total of four bridges for our walking trail system,” Hubiak said. “What we’re looking to do with our parks system and our walking trail is to try to procure two more bridges that are of different style structures so that we can have four of them here total, preserve them, and incorporate them into the park’s walking trail system.”
Already in the park is a bow string bridge built in the 1800s that came from Bracken County a couple of years ago. It’s been restored and placed on the trail where it’s become a focal point of the park.
Even the park itself is a bit of a rescue.
“The park is on 535 acres of reclaimed surface coal mine,” he said.
So the Blackford Creek bridge will fit right in, once it’s taken up and moved.
5Originally KYTC had allocated a set amount of money equal to the cost of disassembling the bridge, labeling everything, and setting it on a trailer to haul to its new destination, but Hubiak said he thinks he can pull it up in one piece like the first one.
“That’s what I plan on trying to do with this one, not disassembling it but taking it as one piece,” he said. “I believe it can be done and it will save us a whole lot of money as opposed to disassembling the bridge and putting it back together.”
Removing it in one piece and hauling it on a low boy might save enough money that the park could use some of the extra on the other end, if it’s allowed.
“If we can do it without having to disassemble it and I can get a little bit of money for putting the support piers in everybody comes out ahead: the bridge gets preserved and it’s going to be or a whole lot less money than whatever they have allocated for disassembling the bridge,” he said.
Officials will be looking at the bridge Friday to take measurements and determine the viability of moving it in one piece, but Hubiak said some work will begin before it ever moves.
“The concrete deck is going to be jackhammered off of it before we pick it,” he said. “And we will put it back to the original piano-style planking, which will be stained and preserved.”
The move is expected to be done sometime this summer.
dave.hancockclarrion
@gmail.com
