EAST LIVERPOOL, Ohio – Stones removed during a road project along state Route 39 in East End will be used to help restore a historic bridge in Jefferson County that was built on the order of President Abraham Lincoln.
At a Wednesday city Community Improvement Corporation meeting, a Jefferson County official asked the CIC to donate the large stones at the former Riverview Florist property on Parkway. The stones have been at the property since the Ohio Department of Transportation removed them from a culvert project more than a year ago.
Aaron R. Dodds, projects manager for Jefferson Soil and Water Conservation District, reminded CIC members he had addressed them a couple years ago, seeking grant funding for a project to transform the Riverview property for public use.
The stones at the Parkway property were replaced with concrete and have not been earmarked for any use since the ODOT project.
Dodds said the stones would be perfect for an ongoing Jefferson County project. That county’s conservation district is working to transform an old railroad project into a nature preserve. It includes a section of the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy’s Great American Rail-Trail, to be known as the Hellbender Preserve, home to the state’s largest population of hellbender salamanders.
The property is anchored by an old railroad tunnel and stone bridge that has suffered damage from ice and stream debris since the railroad closed.
According to information provided by Dodds, the stone bridge began as a wooden trestle bridge, which had been visited by President George Washington in 1771 and by incoming President Abraham Lincoln as he was headed to his inauguration.
On Feb. 14, 1861, Lincoln left Columbus on the Steubenville and Indiana Railroad, arriving at Cadiz Junction where he was advised that a large tree had broken loose and crashed into the train trestle, compromising it and causing the structure to sway, crack and creak, with the train nearly plunging into the creek.
Headed to Pittsburgh, it was decided that passengers, including the president-elect, could disembark the train and walk across the trestle, and the train would follow with just the crew aboard.
As Lincoln approached the center of the trestle, he slipped on the wet wood and fell, with accounts varying whether he fell prone onto the tracks or just to his knee. All reports, though, indicated the president-elect came close to going over the side and falling 37 feet into the ice-filled stream below.
The train made its way unscathed to its other stops, including Washington, D.C. And on June 12, 1861, the new president signed an executive order funding a stone bridge to span Cross Creek, replacing the wooden trestle where he had fallen.
The bridge hasn’t been maintained since the railroad abandoned that section of track, bypassing the tunnels in the 1950s, and is now in need of stones for its restoration.
Dodds said there are about 60 stones at the Riverview property. He said “about a dozen and a half” of the 3-foot-long-by-20-inch-tall stones would be needed for the “huge bridge.”
The project is being funded by Jefferson County Commissioners with American Rescue Plan money, according to Dodds. Contractors, including one who specializes in this type of work, are in place and fully insured, he told the CIC.
Dodds told the panel that stones large enough for the project are difficult to find.
“We’ve been searching for five years,” he said. “To get ones this size is almost impossible. When departments of transportation get them, they hoard them because they can’t find them.”
CIC member Craig Stowers asked about the value of the stones, and Dodds said, “To us, it’s a priceless stone.”
Mayor Bobby Smith said, “Let [Dodds] have what he needs to do his project,” and it was approved unanimously.
In a March 17 letter to the CIC, Dodds stated: “Our hope is that the Hellbender Preserve property and the bicycle trail that will also serve on the Industrial Heartland Trail Network, which East Liverpool also sits upon, will be a regional draw for tourism.”
He said the property will be unveiled on Celebrate Trails Day on April 26, with a grand opening from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Hellbender Preserve, 800 County Road 36, Bloomingdale, with CIC members invited.
Pictured at top: The historic stone bridge in Jefferson County.