 This is Dennis McMahon and welcome to Positively Vermont and Today we are going to be Covering a very interesting topic in our state with officers of the Vermont covered bridge society And have with us Steve Neomoto who is the vice president of the Vermont covered bridge society and It's president Joseph Nelson Welcome Steve and Joe to Positively Vermont Hi Dennis And I just want to ask both of you if you could tell us a little bit about yourself and How you became involved with the area of covered bridges? Steve why don't you start? Sure. I Got involved with the covered bridge society actually fairly early on it was in In response to a Small newspaper ad that the group had put out shortly after they formed they were looking for people to join and My wife actually saw the article in the paper and showed it to me So looked at it and said okay. Well, I'll give that a shot. It's kind of interesting So that was I don't know Late 2000 I think somewhere around there so You've been involved that was a way for a number of years, but then came back and Been involved since What made you get involved? What made you interested in the subject of covered bridges? Um, I think just being here in Vermont, you know, it's kind of a Vermont symbol As a kid, I grew up in downstate New York and you know, there was a barn in our neighborhood So there was some of this architectural kind of Appeal that was interesting and then you know being up here. They're pretty close. There are many of them. You can see With the short drive, so it's just interesting topic Joe why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself and how you became involved in the covered bridges issue Well, I was with IBM Notice that bridges were really interesting Well, I began to tour those bridges away from I'm taking photographs of them so that I could paint them in my son the old home Was it really all that great to find those bridges some of them you could not find those I got a Natalyst so we're not Atlas Which was very interesting in that none of the local roads were named Decided that I'd start my own map Meanwhile Got together with a man named Ted Tedford who was running the Mountain Village in newsletter newspaper and I thought you know since I'd been buried in the IBMs Laboratories and so on all these years 1991 I retired with Ted he had put an ad in the paper to Porter for his newspaper And he took me on and taught me how to write it. Who's that newspaper? Meanwhile, I was putting together this this travel of the Ruth and I would put together my wife Ruth and He saw it and said hey, why don't you write a book? So wrote the book And I gave up the painting thing and stuck to the photography It's that let me wide open to a character in Don't look home contacted We've been writing about the covered bridges that would be That would be it Let me see it. Oh Oh Ed Barna Ed Barna, you know, I'm Joe Nelson And invited us to a saloon in Jeffersonville And there he organized us and we started to cover the British side And I got into the society because I wrote the bloody book What's the name of the book Joe if you could talk a little louder. We're having some audio problems. The name of the book Huh Any time Vermont's covered Let me ask you both What does the Vermont covered bridge society do now as an organization, I know I'm gonna discuss some of these endangered Bridges, but if you just tell us What are the activities of the Vermont covered bridge society and what are some of the projects you've been engaged in during the last year or so? Okay, Bill Okay, it was anxious about the covered bridge they have in Jeffersonville And it was getting ready to fall down And that was his his motive for for getting us together Okay, so the purpose of the Vermont covered bridge society then is to promote the preservation of Vermont's covered bridges So so what? Recent activity that took place last year in the town of Belvedere Some of the things besides not holding meetings anymore because of COVID-19 Prior to that We got a call from these authorities and in Belvedere That the Morgan bridge was failing that the flooring was going out of it And they didn't heard rumors that we made grants for covered bridges Well, we had made several grants Fortunately for our Kitty The grants are never matched, but this one looked like a promising So I went to the trans Checked out Belvedere's budgets and so on and Caswell of the National Society for the preservation of covered bridges joined us and we made a grant to Belvedere to repair their bridge for five thousand dollars and Bill Caswell's outfit matched it The total cost was fourteen thousand four hundred and thirty and Belvedere with Only three hundred taxpayers were able to make up the difference and the bridge was repaired Belvedere considered the Morgan bridge And I guess we can count that as a success for preserving our public bridges Maybe this show goes all over maybe even other parts of the world and did you just tell us What what is a covered bridge? How did they develop? What is the type of Structure is it? Is it wooden is it concrete? Whatever just give us a little background on covered bridges in general Well covered bridges Covered bridges aren't on YouTube to say in Europe in Germany and Switzerland Immigrants came to the Become the United States. They came along with their expertise Oh England of course was kind of key, but England had wiped out their forest and they're using was easy to stone But they also built cathedrals and in the new world wood was pretty cheap. We had a lot of forests Using what they knew about building cathedrals in large buildings They used sort of structure in the covered bridges Starting out with the King post bridge It's this of what we call a Trusts in the King post trust was one of the first used for narrow creeks Like Today our object and just to preserve those trust Preserve the tresses in the old days. They put the trust up. They put a floor between it Okay, and they could pass over this bridge, but they suffered from the weather They were gonna last me the a or 10 years. They have to be Until someone building a bridge in Pennsylvania For a house over his bridge And he decided, you know that it should last at least 50 years Well, we have a bridge here in Vermont that is less than like 100 So the covered bridge is a trust with a house on it and the thing that we The way the wear and chair goes on covered bridge is They replace the floor because say in the winter they put snow in there. So let's get past well They have roofs the roofs have to be replaced deciding has to be replaced And what we're preserving are the trusses the enemies of our covered bridges Modern entrenching where we have Advances a lot heavier than a horse and wagon The horse carrying a leg Okay, so they began to strengthen those bridges and if we're talking about purity We wanted to keep those ridges as they were in the beginning because they were a living function functioning mechanism So the second enemy then was modernization where they began to be replaced Oh You was saying I try to speak a little louder, please because we have all kinds of interference. I just had Okay, so the covered bridges have Lifespans they have enemies as well and one of the enemies we consider is a modernization of these bridges and We also have the The pranksters who like to burn them Well, we try to do is set up areas where we have people One of the things that I noticed From your materials is that there are several Bridges in danger. Maybe Steve can you go into us some of those? River Road bridge in North Troy and others Yeah, well Unfortunately River Road bridge is gone It's past endangered There was a Snowmobile fire in February of this year And the bridge was lost Unfortunately so You know that does happen from time to time But fortunately that's we haven't seen too many of those Recently You know one of the one of the big Concerns these days are oversized trucks there's reports of Drivers just following their GPS Wherever it tells them to go So There's a number of cases like in the last within this year say in the last year One big example Happens in Linden pretty frequently There's a bridge called Miller's Run or Some people call it Bradley This poor bridge has been hit According to the notes we have twice this year And cause damage both times It's it has a history long history unfortunately of being hit The interesting thing about that is it's all captured on video When that happens because I'm not sure if it's a person in the area or who owns the camera But there's a video camera that is on the bridge all the time So when these trucks go through it's captured and a lot of times the police can catch up with the people and you know these days they are getting fines Insurance covers a lot of the damage, but you know the drivers themselves Get ticketed and so you know that Miller's Run is is one that's had that issue This past summer down in Bennington County Chiselville Bridge, it's in the town of Sunderland Was hit again by a truck Oversized and a lot of times these trucks are unmarked You know so they have a little trouble Unless wood is hanging off the The truck from you know being hit. It's a little hard to find but Many times they do actually catch up with the people that do it Fortunately the Chiselville Bridge has been repaired and That's in good shape again Another one that happened It happened in Weitzfield and a Very large truck actually drove into the bridge and got stuck They weren't able to go through so there's pictures of the of the truck Right wedged into the bridge So that was pretty easy to figure out who did that one But you know It's it's interesting. There's a with GPS the beginnings of GPS, you know not that old You would think okay, this has just happened recently, but I do a On the on our Facebook page I do a Feature called this week today this day in Vermont covered bridge history So as I've been doing that putting that together over the last six or seven months It's not necessarily a new phenomenon There's always been larger than Sized vehicles that try to go through bridges. It's it's it was less frequent, but It's not just something brand new in the last couple of years Well, I know I notice you have a Facebook page. You have a a web And we're gonna put links to that On the broadcast and there's a lot of information there. So yeah deals with a bridge every day. Yeah, you have that feature Yeah, well, well, we have a couple of weekly features One feature is like you say We feature Twice a week we feature the bridges in Vermont because there's approximately a hundred bridges So if you do two a week you can cover the state in a year So, you know, it's just it's kind of a short little blurb a lot of information comes from Joe's book That he put together and other sources as well pictures there's a photographer Down in Rutland County who's taking some Very recent pictures. So his his pictures are currently featured We kind of cycle in and out of photographers over time So, you know, one person doesn't See it all the time Reminds me. There's a an artist named Peter Huntoon who does a daily Daily portrait of Vermont. Oh really? Yeah They in Vermont and that's on as well. And I think I was it. Yeah, I think sometimes he does Covered bridges Yeah, yeah, I'm gonna try to have him on the show in the future Let me ask you this this did you said there's over a hundred covered bridges now in Vermont that And yes, one of the things that I mentioned or I saw you mentioned is that there are solutions to this You know, there are a great item of transportation number one a great item of tourism a great Attraction for historians and artists, but you but you say that in other states they've adopted some special solutions to some of the Yeah, yeah as far as You know the the GPS issue you're talking about Yeah, yeah Yeah, that's some other states have gone to pretty extreme measures Even in Canada They put these steel bars Distance ahead of the before the bridge the entrance and You know so so if an oversized vehicle tries to go through they're gonna smash into the iron bars instead of the bridge You know in this state from what I understand that's not encouraged I don't have all the reasons or the You know all that's behind it, but I know it's It's not a solution that that seems practical or feasible Here, but I know like in Georgia. There's a bridge I think it's outside of Atlanta. I forget the name of it, but that bridge has been hit so many times So they've taken some pretty extreme measures to To try to protect it So I don't you have anything else on that Joe Wow, just on the protection itself Protection it seems that Vermont then it's afraid of lawsuits We disagree with that the only negative on those beans is that It makes it difficult to take a picture of the bridge and that's what our tourists like to do Yeah Yeah, they have a setup is the Little bridge in Georgia where they have the bar on one end of the bridge But the truck can enter the other end You come to that bar then he can't back he's got it back up through the bridge And some some some way some solutions seem to defeat their own purpose That's that's one of the problems that that we went to the state with is to try to put up the signage, you know to present to prevent the Trucks from committing themselves to a situation where it's difficult to back Away So this gentleman in In Chisholmville took it on itself then to post these signs on each end of the of the Road that approaches the bridge To prevent the truck from going on to that road The problem with the state is that they have regulations on signage That would make it too expensive to say for the covered bridge societies to to set up these signs and They have regulations to that say if we wanted to augment the signage that they have we are forbidden to use their posts So we can't share the post I think we gave up on that a few years ago In a cave and we approach the towns that we asked the town now you set up these signs You have the wherewithal And well in town did and that would be I think I was distraught says a little just for that of it Where they have Unpowered signs with flashing lights with their pictures in the right places so that Traffic does not go on to that road that can't go through the bridge So they've set a great example It's expensive, you know to keep repairing these bridges. I Hope they see the light one of these days and begin to do it themselves The towns you see own these bridges. There's only a few bridges owned by the state Rest of them are all by the town They're backed up by V-trans V-trans makes their regular inspections and V-trans also helps these towns then to find funds repair their bridges The V-trans has a couple of bridge Construction center or section okay that have the expertise to to accept the Bitters they put out bids on it on the bridge to be repaired and all of these people that have worked on covered bridges make their bed and V-trans then passes on and accepts the bid It's it's the problem the best we have a number of legislators that watch this show and the show goes pretty much statewide and also a lot of community organizations Tune into this Tell us what the Vermont covered bridge society needs From the public or from the government or from anyone who's interested in the preservation of Covered bridges Joey you want to tell us that first? Well, we needed some dedicated folks, you know to fill out the holes that we have in our organization We have a standing committee for each of the phases that we think need to be covered One of them of course It's the bridgewalks thing we would like to have someone Or a group of people in each of the towns of a bridge Okay to look down for that bridge and make regular reports on it and to work with the town on keeping that bridge up to snuff Like for instance cutting the weeds that sort of thing Actually helping within the bridge and so on there's a problem there in that there needs to be insurance and if there are people in that bridge That has opened the traffic. They also need traffic control, which costs So what we need then or our agreements then where we can work as a community on each of those bridges Okay to avoid these problems and Obviate the necessity for Insurance That sort of thing What we like to have is folks, you know, keep an eye on a bridge on Halloween And of course To make it untenable, you know for gangs of young young men to Occupy a bridge which they do you've seen their their artwork So It's like any other item of public property people got to keep an eye out and inform the authorities That's right. So that's what we want to do is link all of these bridges together Okay, so that we have we have our center then we can go to this state Okay to solve The trend You should know that the Vermont covered bridge society has a seat on the covered bridge Committee And we can voice our opinions and we can Spread the word about what they're doing that sort of thing the only thing we don't have there of course is about Okay, well, we are about at the end and I just want to Ask for a parting message We only have a few minutes left from Steve Mia moto the vice president and Joseph Nelson the president of the Vermont covered bridge society why don't you just give us a parting shot and urge people How they can help cover bridges and get involved in your project So I'm just going to give you that opportunity now We have our covered bridges now and we'd like to have them for our prosperity There are great examples of the work that was done in this country when it was all for us and rivers and We had to put together and Yeah, a road system and a bridge system in order to occupy properly Man used to carry his corn to a grinding mill on his back or on his meal Within the bridges so that he doesn't need to do that very first a very first section of You would call the need that word Right sure I would say join us It's it's easy to join the the Cover bridge society. You can visit our website. There is a membership application That can be filled out You get a quarterly newsletter with information current news Some features So that's one way you can get involved like Joe says if you're interested in that you can join Any one of the committees? There's plenty of room All you all you need to do is be willing and commit to helping out The cost is very minimal So the other thing I would say is visit social media that we have as well Which I think you said you'll post the links, but there we have weekly features we have Trivia questions we have History features There's all sorts of different information for people that are interested in bridges currently or Some of the bridges that We're here years ago that no longer exist So I would just say join us Thank you very much We're sorry. We're running out of time But we're gonna follow your progress and get you back sometime in the future Maybe in studio and discuss some of the endangered bridges you're working on to save and I want to thank Joseph Nelson the president and Steve Miyamoto the vice president of the Vermont covered bridge society For a very interesting presentation here on positively Vermont. This is Dennis McMahon. Thank you for watching