Nice photos of the bridge. If you look carefully at the top you'll see a rock that jutts out from the rest. An old timer told me that one of the male residents of Highbridge (he named him but I've forgotten his name) would jump off this rock into the water below. I was tempted to try but never did. I wonder if that rock was intentionally placed in order to be a jumping off point.
One write-up I read states that the bridge cost $2400 to build in 1817. According to the 'official data' site this is $57000 in today's $. When I made some rough calculations using granite stone and stone mason's labor at $50/sq ft of wall built on level ground with the same amount of stone it would cost $825000. Add making an arch in a gulley 55 ft deep and the cost would be over a million.
This bridge was built in 132 days with approximately 6 million pounds of rock brought to the site with horses. Unfortunately photography was not yet invented in 1817. I'm surprised that more was not written about it.
Somewhere there is a writeup. It is actually the second bridge. The first collapsed because the builder didn't know what he was doing. I learned stone bridges don't have a weight limit. They don't need one.
Nice photos of the bridge. If you look carefully at the top you'll see a rock that jutts out from the rest. An old timer told me that one of the male residents of Highbridge (he named him but I've forgotten his name) would jump off this rock into the water below. I was tempted to try but never did. I wonder if that rock was intentionally placed in order to be a jumping off point.
One write-up I read states that the bridge cost $2400 to build in 1817. According to the 'official data' site this is $57000 in today's $. When I made some rough calculations using granite stone and stone mason's labor at $50/sq ft of wall built on level ground with the same amount of stone it would cost $825000. Add making an arch in a gulley 55 ft deep and the cost would be over a million.
This bridge was built in 132 days with approximately 6 million pounds of rock brought to the site with horses. Unfortunately photography was not yet invented in 1817. I'm surprised that more was not written about it.
Somewhere there is a writeup. It is actually the second bridge. The first collapsed because the builder didn't know what he was doing. I learned stone bridges don't have a weight limit. They don't need one.
For more examples see https://thestonetrust.org/bridge-tour-sept-7-2018/