The Eller Chronicles

Above: View of the old ELLER covered bridge, ancient structure on the Mattsville road, Decrepitude of the bridge is shown by the span of the side timbers.
Right: A sign which marks the antiquity of the bridge.

(Special of the Indiana Star.) Noblesville, Ind., July 19.�The Eller bridge, which spans White river near Mattsville in the south-western part of Hamilton county, is the type of structure built in central Indiana sixty and seventy five years ago. These bridges however were built to stand traffic and some of them are almost as substantial as they were when they were completed. The Eller structure was erected by Joshia Durfee and John Atkins, local bridge builders of this city fifty years ago. It derives its name from the Eller ford a short distance south of the bridge. Lately some of the beams have shown signs of decay and the county commissioners have prohibited heavy loads from being hauled across the structure. It is one of five similar bridges still standing in Hamilton county, all of which were created about the same time.

STURDY LANDMARKS OF HOOSIER DAYS---

194 Covered Bridges Still Serve

By WILLIAM EGGERT

INDIANA'S COVERED bridges may sag and tremble but their services have not been forgotten.

And although they have been replaced on main highways by modern, sturdy steel and concrete structures. these nostalgic landmarks, and Indiana has 193�- of them, are being preserved because the Covered Timber Bridge committee of the Indiana Historical Society has stimulated the desires of thousands of Hoosiers to keep them from becoming just a heritage of the past. Call it obstinate resistance, if you like. or Just fidelity to pioneer blood, but covered bridges will remain a. part of Indiana.

The "half" bridge is that single span construction that reaches across the Indiana-Ohio boundary at West College Corner in Union county.

AT ONE time Indiana had hundreds of these bridges. The first were built in 1831, one of which was the Washington st. bridge built by William Wernweg and Walter Blake at a cost of $18,000.

It was a vital part of the national road from Cumberland Md. to St. Louis, and withstood trafftc, such as it was, for 50 years. Most of this time it was the only means of crossing White river. It was razed in 1902.

A covered bridge still in use near Indianapolis is "Potter's bridge," two miles north of Noblesville near Road 13. It was built in 1840 and rebuilt in 1938 at the expense of Hamilton county when farmers protested vigorously the state's plan to raze it.

The knotty stays and supports for these wooden spans are more than a half-century old. Most of them were built by Joseph J. Daniels of Rockville, who erected 60 between 1851 and 1905. In southern Indiana a family of bridge-building Kennedys erected many from 1870 until 1918.

It's the hope of the covered bridge committee to keep abreast of other states. New England states plan to preserve their bridges, built during early American settlement days. Oregon has an estimated 300 covered bridges and the abundant supply of timber makes it feasible for the state to continue building them.

Of Indiana's bridges, one is an aqueduct, two are on private property, two are preserved as relics, one is in use in a, public park, one is state institutional property, two are on highways within state park areas and the remaining 185 are in use on Public roads and state highways.

Parke county with 41 embraces the largest number of covered bridges. Other ranking counties are Putnam, 24; Rush, 12; and Franklin, 11.

Front Cover Sketch by Jean Oliver
I do some Sketching and painting and have just about finished a pen & ink sketch of this bridge to enter in our Bangor State Fair art show
--- [ EDS, see front cover ] - (click on thumbnail [ADE])