2023-09-30 05:15:24
BLAINE — Fifth-graders from Bridgeport Middle School traveled to the Blaine “S” Bridge to learn regarding its structure and history Friday.
Pease Township Park officials and local historians conducted a tour for the students.
John S. Marshall of St. Clairsville, a representative of the Ohio National Road Association, walked up and down the bridge with the students and taught them regarding the history of the bridge and National Road.
“In 1825, ground was broken for the National Road in Ohio in St. Clairsville. Route 40, or the Historical National Road, was really the main street of America,” he said.
The bridge was constructed three years later in 1828, making it Ohio’s oldest sandstone bridge. The bridge spans Wheeling Creek and is located under the current “viaduct” bridge that takes travelers uphill toward St. Clairsville from Blaine on U.S. 40.
The S bridge closed to motor vehicles in 1994 due to its condition but is still used as a walking and bike trail.
“All year long we maintain the bridge for anyone to come down to the bridge, but we coordinated with Belmont County Tourism and Bridgeport Middle School to do an educational day,” Kim Mokros of the Pease Township Parks and Recreation Department said.
The event featured covered wagon rides provided by Patty and Dick Gummere and Bruce Vannest. The wagons were pulled by a pair of mules.
Several local antique car owners also attended the educational day to show the students what some of the cars traveling on the historic bridge in the early 20th century looked like.
“I want kids to understand that when individuals came down this hillside, their brakes didn’t work because they were traveling in these types of cars that are not the same kind of cars we have now,” Anne Haverty Lawson, principal of Bridgeport Middle School, said.
The oldest vehicle at the event was a 1926 Model T Touring car owned by Mike Chambers of Centerville. He said that his dad’s cousin originally bought the car in 1925 in Sebring, Ohio, and has stayed in the family since. He said the car was passed down to his father in 1972 and passed to him in 2010.
“The kids really seem to like it. This is the kind of stuff my dad always liked to do with those kids,” he said.
Chambers plans to keep the vehicle in the family.
“Next, it will be passed on to my son. He’s 24 and he’s just got to get old enough to appreciate it,” Chambers said.
During the educational day, many fifth-graders excitedly climbed inside the vehicle.
“They can’t hurt it,” he said.
Chambers said he drives the car short distances and uses a trailer to haul it longer distances.
“I don’t travel much because the wooden spokes are nearly 100 years old now. …Traffic doesn’t really respect it. It gets up to regarding 30 miles per hour tops,” he said.
Chambers said he tries to park the car facing downhill to make traveling easier.
“That way I can just coast it,” he said.
Jerry Miklas, Steve Dawson, Mike Horsky and Jeff Kirk also brought antique cars to the event.
Students also played games and made crafts that were popular around the time the bridge was built. Anne Rattine, schoolmarm at the Great Western Schoolhouse on the campus of Ohio University Eastern west of St. Clairsville, wore historic clothing and taught the students how to play many old-fashioned games.
Lawson said she values teaching students regarding local history.
“It is the history of this valley. This is how people got from the west out by Columbus to West Virginia. This is how they traveled. … It’s just the historical value in our valley, and there’s lots of it,” she said.
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