Wikimedia Commons/William J. Bugler
The Phelps Brothers’ Two-Month Bridge Building Triumph
In 1875, two brothers with no bridge-building know-how pulled off something big in Waterford, Pennsylvania.
Charles and James Phelps, both carpenters by trade, built an 85-foot covered bridge over LeBoeuf Creek in just two months.
They used a clever design from Ithiel Town, who had patented his lattice truss system back in 1820. The brothers drilled 2,592 holes and hammered 912 oil-soaked oak dowels to hold the crisscrossed planks together…