Bob White Covered Bridge, Woolwine Virginia
The Bob White Covered Bridge is one of Virginia's eleven remaining covered bridges and is an excellent example the timber bridge building art. It and Meems Bottom Bridge in Shenandoah County are the only covered bridges still part of the State Highway system.
The bridge presumably takes its name from the Bob White Post Office which once stood nearby, but the origin of the name itself is unknown. Begun in 1920 and completed in the fall of 1921, the bridge was built under the direction of Walter Weaver, who also was responsible for the design of the nearby Jack's Creek Covered Bridge. Weaver also is reported to have been skilled in sawmilling, blacksmithing, and coffin making. Members of Weaver's family assisted in the construction of the bridge. One son worked as a carpenter while another acted as a water boy. A young daughter carried lunch to the site from the Weaver's home, two miles distant.
The bridge is used today mainly by churchgoers headed toward the nearby Smith River Church of the Brethren. The picturesque structure is enhanced by its unspoiled rural setting.
Bridge Description
The eighty-foot heavy oak timber bridge is said to be a truss bridge constructed on the principles of the Burr Arch, a combination of arches and radiating kingposts which was invented around 1804 by Theodore Burr and patented in 1817. Without destroying the fabric of the bridge, it would be difficult to ascertain definitively whether or not it is indeed a Burr truss. The interior of the bridge is of circular-sawn overlap diagonal sheathing (that is, the interior is sheathed once with the diagonal boards going in one direction and then again with the boards going in the opposite direction); the exterior is covered with boards-and-battens which are also circular-sawn and appear to have never been painted. The portals project and are supported by long corner bracing which is sheathed along with the sides of the bridge. The gables have board-and-batten sheathing.
The roof is constructed of common rafters mitered into each other at the peak of the gable. The timbers project above the side walls of the bridge and thus form a simple rafter bracket. The bridge has open eaves; the space between the rafter above the side walls and beneath the roof, is open to provide ventilation. A wind brace is placed next to every other rafter end and cross-bracing ends are mitered into each other at every fourth rafter. Finally, corner bracing extends from the same rafters to which the horizontal cross-braces are attached. In 1972 short reinforcing plates, projecting about twelve inches into the interior, have been fastened to some of the rafters under the eaves. The present roofing is of corrugated metal painted green and lies atop boards set across the rafters.
The bridge is set on cross-ties lying on three concrete piers. The approaches to the bridge are constructed on dry laid rubble piled against the end piers. The mid-stream, center pier, a cut-water, is flat on the eastern side, but V-shaped on the western, upstream side to help prevent the accumulation of debris. Inside the bridge, transverse boards form the flooring while longitudinal runners delineate wheel tracks. On the underside of the bridge, parallel boards run approximately beneath the runners; between these parallel boards are wooden V-trusses. Spaced between each pier are two iron-bolted, wooden tie-rods which have seasoning cracks.
