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Gilbertville-Ware or Bridge Street, Hampshire County

If you find errors in the data please contact Bill Caswell.

If you would like to provide information on covered bridges that no longer exist from your state, or adopt a state to work on, we would certainly welcome your assistance. Please contact Trish Kane for more information.

Inventory Number: MA/21-08-04 / MA-14-01
County: Hampshire County / Worcester County
Township: Hardwick - Ware
Town/Village: Gilbertville
Bridge Name: Gilbertville-Ware or Bridge Street
Crosses: Ware River
Truss type: Town
Spans: 1
Length: 137'
Roadway Width:
Built: 1886
Builder:
When Lost: standing
Cause:
Latitude: N42 18.610
Longitude: W072 12.732
See a map of the area
Topographic map of the area
Directions: 3.0 miles north of jct MA9 on MA32, then 0.1 miles left on Bridge St.

Gilbertville Bridge, Hardwick-Ware, Hampshire County, MA Built 1886
George Pease Collection, NSPCB Archives

Gilbertville-Ware or Bridge St. Bridge, Hardwick-Ware, Hampshire County, MA Built 1886
William Maxant Photo, 1939, Harvard (MA) Historical Society

Gilbertville-Ware or Bridge St. Bridge, Hardwick-Ware, Hampshire County, MA Built 1886
Bill Caswell Photo, April 21, 2014

Comments:
The National Register application notes that primary evidence has not been found to confirm the 1886 construction date. However, the bridge is mentioned in a Gilbertville directory in 1892 and there is a photograph of the nearby 1884 Congregational Parsonage published in 1885 which does not show a bridge at this location. The village of Gilbertville was founded in 1860 when the George H. Gilbert Company, a woolen manufacturing firm, started building mills and homes there. It is possible that the bridge was built by the mill company to improve roadway access to and from the village. Historically, the towns of Hardwick and Ware would make repairs to their half and not always at the same time. An article in the Summer 1957 Connecticut River Valley Covered Bridge Society Bulletin noted that repairs had been made to the Ware side a couple years earlier and the Gilbertville side is to receive repairs. The bridge was rebuilt in 1986. It now includes metal reinforcements and a three-toned color scheme; portsides stained red and white while the long sides are left a natural color. Unfortunately, the bridge suffers some graffiti. It was closed in 2002 and reopened in 2011 after repairs were completed including replacing the floor trusses with steel I-beams.

Sources:
Evans, Benjamin D. & June R.. New England's Covered Bridges, 2004, pages 73-74
Connecticut River Valley Covered Bridge Society. Bulletin, Volume IV, no. 1, Summer 1957, page 6
Burk, John. Covered Bridges of Massachusetts, 2010, Pages 109-113
National Society for the Preservation of Covered Bridges. World Guide to Covered Bridges, 2021, page 39

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