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Bridgeport Covered Bridge

COUNTY WORLD GUIDE # CROSSES TRUSS SPANS LENGTH BUILT GONE
Carroll & Frederick MD-06-01x & MD-10-12x Monocacy River Burr 2 234' 1849 1932
Bridgeport Covered Bridge spanned the Monocacy River, crossing the Frederick and Carroll County line at the city of Bridgeport on Taneytown Pike. Taneytown Pike is the main route connecting Taneytown in Carroll County with Emmitsburg in Frederick County.
Bridgeport Concrete Bridge built in 1925, photo 2008The bridge was erected in 1849 and was removed in 1932.¹ The current concrete structure that replaced the bridge was built in 1925, indicating the covered bridge may have been lost by that year, but it is also likely that the old bridge was bypassed and stood until removed in 1932.
The News (Frederick, MD) carried an article on August 27, 1925 announcing progress on construction of the concrete bridge:
Work is being rushed on the new concrete bridge that will replace the old covered bridge over the Monocacy River at Bridgeport on the Emmitsburg-Taneytown state road. Part of this bridge is in Frederick and part in Carroll county. The work has been completed on the arch rings and the walls leaving the hand rails, back fill and surfacing is completed. This bridge should be open for traffic by the middle of October.
In an article in the Baltimore Sunpapers, in 1947: "Frederick County once possessed what is believed to have been the state's longest. That was a two span, 234 foot structure that crossed the Monocacy River near Bridgeport until the late 1920s or early 1930s."
A historical marker at the current Monocacy crossing says, "As part of General Meade's screen for Washington as the Confederates invaded Maryland and Pennsylvania, the Third Corps, Army of The Potomac, arrived here June 30, 1863; from Taneytown. Next day General Daniel E. Sickles marched the corps to Emmitsburg."

UPDATED: 5/13/2013, for additional information about the completion of the concrete bridge in 1925.

¹ Historical Society of Carroll County, The First 150 Years, A Pictorial History of Carroll County, Maryland 1837-1987 (Historical Society of Carroll County: 1987), p. 42.

Bridgeport Covered Bridge
Bridgeport Bridge as shown on the cover of Carroll County Heritage Calendar 1984. Photo by Ed Zepp.

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