The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation will keep three important historic covered bridges in Chester County from falling into oblivion through a two-year project to restore them.

The $3.2 million project starting this month and ending in September 2016 will work to reopen the heavily damaged Rapps Dam Covered Bridge in East Pikeland, then replace the substructure, support abutments, wing walls and timbers of the Speakman Covered Bridge in West Marlborough and eventually reconstruct walls and parapets on the Knox Covered Bridge in Tredyffrin Township’s Valley Forge National Historic Park.

“Pennsylvania is home to the most covered bridges in the nation,” state Sen. Andy Dinniman said in a recent announcement, “and here in Chester County, we continue to work to preserve and maintain our historic covered bridges. I am especially pleased to see Speakman’s Covered Bridge being restored, as I have been working with community partners to preserve its historic status since 2012.”

Eastern Highway Specialists will perform the work on the covered bridges, the first two of which are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The Rapps Dam Covered Bridge, in particular, will require new ceiling and knee joists and wooden roof cross members to repair damage sustained last spring when an oversized truck struck the Burr Arch truss bridge.

The covered bridges are among the 15 remaining in Chester County and 210 in Pennsylvania, which boasts one-fourth of all covered bridges left standing in the nation.

“We need to keep the ones that we have and maintain them,” Dinniman said in a Daily Local News report. “It’s part of keeping our history and keeping what we’re all about alive and well.”

Read more about the projects in the Daily Local News here.

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Top Photo via Monte Morton