FOSTER – Even now, 30 years later, John Neale gets goosebumps explaining how town residents came together to build Rhode Island’s only covered bridge over a public road – then built it again with even more vigor when arsonists burned it down.
“It’s emotional,” says Neale, who’s 73, “because we had to grieve and mourn for the loss of the bridge and then say we’re going to rebuild it.”
And they did.
Town resident Robert Salisbury first proposed a covered bridge over Hemlock Brook in 1986 in honor of Rhode Island’s 350th anniversary. At the time Rhode Island was the only New England state without such an iconic image of the past, and while there are other covered bridges in Rhode Island , this would be the only one on a public road.
But the project was dealt a setback almost immediately when, in 1987, state transportation officials insisted on improving the steel-reinforced road deck of the existing bridge on Central Pike before any wooden “shed” was built over the top of it.
As state transportation officials worked on that aspect of the bridge improvement, the town came to embrace the idea of a covered bridge. Charles Borders, a retired dairy farmer, became head of a building committee, and carpenter Jed Dixon would design the wooden shed portion following plans from 1820. Volunteers pledged donations and hard work.