The Giddings Road Covered Bridge spanning Mill Creek in Jefferson Township, Ashtabula County, Ohio. The bridge, one of currently 16 drivable bridges in the county, is a single-span Pratt truss design.

John Smolen selected the Pratt truss design for his third new timber-bridge venture in Ashtabula County. Crossing Mill Creek on Giddings Road, the 107-foot-long bridge was completed in 1995.

The county received a federal highway grant of $427,000 to build the bridge. Smolen applied under a special section of the grant which allocated money for timber structures.

Sentinel Structures of Peshtigo, Wisc., fabricated the laminated timbers, which were transported to the construction site on flatbed trailers and assembled by workers from BOG Construction of Berlin Center, Ohio, contractor for the job. The assembly took place in the winter and spring of 1995; concrete abutments were poured the prior autumn.

The actual assembly of the bridge took place in May 1995, when two cranes rented from Midwest Equipment were brought on-site to lift the two trusses, each one weighing 48,000 pounds. The cranes “walked” the trusses from their construction site on the north side of Mill Creek to within reach of a 200-ton crane. Workers attached a three-point boom to each truss and guided the erect truss over the gap.

Located at:  N41 45.899    W80 43.955     -     WGCB #35-04-62

Photographed in May 2022