Paper Mill - 1889
The 1889 Paper Mill Village Bridge, also called the Paper Mill Bridge or Bennington Falls Covered Bridge, is a wooden covered bridge that carries Murphy Road across the Walloomsac River in North Bennington, Bennington County, Vermont.
The Paper Mill Village Bridge is located adjacent to a former paper mill building, just south of the campus of Bennington College, northwest of downtown Bennington. It is a single-span Town lattice truss structure, 125 feet long and 18.5 feet wide, with a roadway width of 15 feet (one lane). It rests on stone abutments that have been partially faced in concrete. The sides are clad in vertical board siding, while the portal ends are finished in horizontal flushboard siding. The side walls only rise part of the way to the roof, which shelters the upper portions of the trusses. A number of the truss members have been doubled to strengthen them, and there are also additional floor beams.
The Paper Mill Bridge was built by Charles F. Sears, whose family was prominent in the local bridge-building business. The bridge, which is the longest covered bridge in Bennington County, is similar in design to the nearby Silk Covered Bridge, whose design is sometimes attributed to Sears' father Benjamin. Paper Mill Village Bridge was rebuilt in 2000.
Of the over 500 covered bridges that were built in the state of Vermont, as of 2019, only 104 remain.
The original bridge was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973.
Located at: N42 54.764 W73 14.007 - WGCB #45-02-03 #2
Photographed in July of 2019.