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Pepperell or Groton Street, Middlesex 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/21-09-01#3
County: Middlesex County
Township: Pepperell
Town/Village:
Bridge Name: Pepperell or Groton Street
Crosses: Nashua River
Truss type: Pratt Variant
Spans: 1
Length: 98'
Roadway Width:
Built: 2010
Builder:
When Lost: standing
Cause:
Latitude: N42 40.180
Longitude: W071 34.504
See a map of the area
Topographic map of the area
Directions: MA111 (Hollis St.) 0.6 miles north of jct MA113 (Main St.), then 0.4 miles right on Groton St.

Pepperell or Groton Street Bridge, Pepperell, Middlesex County, MA Built 2010
Bob Salvi Photo, May 29, 2011

Pepperell or Groton Street Bridge, Pepperell, Middlesex County, MA Built 2010
Bill & Jenn Caswell Photo, July 31, 2023

Comments:
The first covered bridge at this location replaced an open wooden bridge in 1847. The location represented the boundary between Pepperell and Groton until 1857. A 5-foot-wide sidewalk was added along the bridge’s west side in 1920, the same year its fieldstone footings were replaced with concrete piers. A February 18, 1936 article in the Fitchburg Sentinel mentioned that the “matter of replacing the old covered bridge by a cement one as a WPA project was passed over.” The bridge survived the March 1936 flood with only minor damage. Shortly afterward, steel I-beams were installed underneath to handle the increasingly heavy modern vehicles. Due to decay, the bridge was closed to traffic on July 6, 1958. In 1963 a new covered bridge, named the Chester H. Waterous Bridge after the legislator who won funding for it, was built at a cost of $233,000. That bridge was found to be inadequate and removed in 2008. A new covered bridge was completed in 2010.

Source:
National Society for the Preservation of Covered Bridges. World Guide to Covered Bridges, 2021, page 40

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