Day 3 - NOTR and PPOO at DennyGibson.com

Day 3: August 11, 2024
No Bridge for You
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I anticipated visiting the National Road Museum across the road during my stay at Baker's but I travel too slow and get distracted too easily. The museum was closed by the time I got there. I considered hanging around for what I thought would be a 10:00 AM opening but learned that on Sunday it opens at noon. Visiting the outside was all I got to do this time.

This is the western end of the brick segment of the National Road that runs through Norwich, OH.

Everyone knows that familiarity breeds contempt but I think it more often breeds inattention. I have stopped many times at the Fox Creek S-bridge near New Concord but today it seems I drove right by it without even realizing it. Sadly, this was only the first (unless I later remember an earlier one) of several major goofs on this trip.

The Peters Creek S-bridge, just west of Cambridge, is one I've had conflicted thoughts about. As the plaque indicates, one of the organizations involved in the 2006 renovation of the 1828 bridge was the Federal Emergency Management Agency. As much as I like seeing historic structures saved and maintained, I have trouble thinking of the repairing of this bypassed and long-closed bridge as an emergency.

The panel beside the mile marker talks about National Road mile markers in Ohio. That is a subject covered in detail in Cyndie Gerken's Marking the Miles. Her Building the Bridges book provides an equally detailed look at Ohio's National Road bridges, some S shaped and some not.

Ohio sure has some fine looking courthouses. This is the Guernsey County Courthouse in Cambridge with an also fine looking National Road mile marker in front of it.

Peacock Road was paved in brick as part of the effort to improve supply transportation in the period preceding World War I which coincided with the period of NOTR development.

A friend and I spotted this roadside display east of Old Washington in June while headed to Pennsylvania and I have since seen pictures of it online. Now I have my own pictures.

Here's another great looking courthouse in St. Clairsville in Belmont County. I have probably heard why the mile marker here is an unusual marble cube and imagine it has something to do with this being where construction of the Ohio portion of the National Road began.

I had heard of at least a partial closure of the 1933 US-40 Arches of Memory bridge in Blaine, OH, and followed the detour on I-70 to its eastern end to find it totally closed. I have seen nothing definite on its future. The 1828 Blaine Hill S-Bridge next to it remains open to pedestrians only. Actually, the steps leading to the deck of the newer bridge (which I have climbed exactly once) appear open so maybe that bridge could be considered available to pedestrians too.

Continuing with the closed bridge theme, here's one that has been open only to pedestrians since September, 2019. Despite some major rehabilitation work, it is beginning to seem unlikely that the Wheeling Suspension Bridge will ever be reopened to vehicles. On this eastbound trip, I took somewhat unusual for me pictures of the western end of the bridge. Of course, I had to include one of the other end too.

West Virginia's Madonna of the Trail is on the outskirts of Wheeling with another closed bridge just beyond. This is the Elm Grove Stone Bridge built in 1817 but modified over the years.

Here is the entire Nat ional Road in Pennsylvania in a single panel. It begins with the Century Inn (originally Hill's Tavern) followed by a very un-road-related boat topped silo. Then it is Pennsylvania's Madonna of the Trail in Beallsville, the Dunlap Creak Bridge in Brownsville, and the Searight and Addison toll houses.

I stopped for the night at the 1842 Casselman Inn in Grantsville, MD. My room is here but I failed to photo half of it so filled the space with a headboard shot. What might look like a second bathroom is a shared shower down the hall for folks (like me) who don't care for tubs. The Casselman's restaurant is closed on Sundays so I headed down the road to the Cornucopia Cafe for some very good Teriyaki Salmon.

The cafe is next to the Casselman River Bridge State Park so naturally I walked over to grab some photos. This closed bridge thing is starting to be annoying.

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