Blackwood Covered Bridge, Athens Ohio
The Blackwood Covered Bridge takes its name from Harvey and William Blackwood, who owned much land in Lodi Township, including most of the land adjoining the bridge site. The 1883 History of the Hocking Valley lists William Blackwood as one of the prominent farmers of Lodi Township who owned 340 acres of land there. It is not known if this is the only bridge ever built over the creek at this site, but the 1875 Atlas of Athens County shows a few homes and a school near the crossing, but no mill or community that would have justified a bridge prior to 1881. There are no homes near the bridge today and the area is very quiet and lonely.
It crosses the middle branch of the Shade River in a beautiful valley setting two and one-half miles east of busy US 33 and ten miles southeast of Athens, Ohio. The hillsides rising above the covered bridge show beautiful stone outcroppings and probably provided the cut-stone for the bridge abutments. The area here is still all agricultural as it was when the bridge was built and there are fewer people in the immediate vicinity than there were a century ago. The bridge, with its red siding and light green roof, fits right into this lovely pastoral scene. Deer tracks abound on the road leading into the bridge, proof of the peacefulness of this area.
Bridge Description
Blackwood Bridge is a one-span wooden truss covered bridge spanning the middle branch of the Shade River on County Road 6 in Lodi Township section 1, 24 miles east northeast of Pratt's Fork and 10 miles southeast of Athens, Athens County, Ohio. The bridge span has vertical, high-boarded siding, a metal roof, projected portals, and cut-stone abutments.
It was built in 1881 on the multiple kingpost truss plane The kingpost truss is the earliest known form of bridge truss and employs the triangular form in which the diagonals of the truss are the compression members and the verticals or kingposts, are in tension. A single kingpost truss was used for very short spans and the natural outgrowth of this was to use several kingposts or multiple kingposts, for longer spans. This truss type was the most commonly used wooden bridge truss here in early Ohio. It was easy for the average carpenter/bridge builder to erect. Many different truss designs evolved from the multiple kingpost, but this simple design remained the great favorite of Ohio bridge builders. The Blackwood Bridge has an 8-panel multiple kingpost truss with some steel rods added for additional strength. The upper chords of the bridge are 2-6" x 6" and the lower chords are 2-6" x 12". The truss members are mostly 6½" x 6½" with some slight variations. There are 4, steel rods on the first truss vertical, 2 on the inside of the bridge, and 2 on the outside. There are 2 steel rods on the third truss vertical and two on the center kingpost, and in each case, one rod is on the inside of the bridge and the other is on the outside. These steel rods were added to the trusses in 1905. The overall length of the span is 85' with a truss length of 63'. The roadway width is 14'2" and the overall width is 16'6". The bridge has a single-layer floor, laid transversely. In the spring of 1975, a support of galvanized steel piling and galvanized structural steel was placed under the center of the bridge.
The Blackwood Bridge is painted a bright red with a pale green metal roof. It still sets on its original cut-stone abutments, but the main load of the bridge is now carried by the new galvanized steel pier described above.
East portal, looking west (1976)
