Creekside Bridge

Sandstone

This beautiful bridge is actually clad in the same sandstone blocks that a couple old railroad bridges in Ohio were originally constructed of; bridges that had been demolished for unrelated reasons. We recycled the blocks by slicing the century-old hand-tooled faces off in relatively consistent thickness, and hand pitched each face to the right size. The underlayment is solid concrete, and we bolted each sandstone slab into place to give the impression that our bridge was built of solid blocks. The arched "windows" were a challenge, since we had to suspend our slabs upside down. Dale hand carved two (so far) of the keystones. The first is a smirking alley cat, and the second a four pupil troll. When the weather breaks in 2009 we expect to finish the other four. Since they are located in a subtle way, they've become a kind of community test... "Have you found the cat yet?" I've overheard several times. It's this kind of personal touch that has earned the project national awards and attention. So different than the typical commercial complex these days. Nicely done, team!