Elm Grove Stone Bridge Closure Moved to 2022
Traffic Concerns Among Main Reasons
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WHEELING -- Preliminary work has begun on Elm Grove's historic Stone Bridge. Yet, according to West Virginia Division of Highways District 6 Engineer Tony Clark, the bridge closure scheduled for today has been postponed until next spring. Traffic concerns are the reason for the change, highway officials said.
Renovations are expected to continue beneath and around the more-than-200-year-old structure in the coming months.
Clark said the bridge will not actually close until sometime next spring, possibly April.
He said the completion date is still set for Oct. 21, 2022.
"They will still continue working on the bridge. They just won't do the closure until sometime early next year," Clark explained. "Work has already begun. They have already been out there doing some work underneath the bridge," he added.
WVDOH Area Engineer Mike Witherow said the DOH and contractor decided Tuesday to delay the actual road closure on the $3.8 million project.
"In an effort to minimize the effect on traffic, we're re-evaluating the process of our sequence of construction to allow activities to be performed prior to the closure," he said, noting that will lessen the estimated length the bridge was set to close.
Crews with Clearwater Construction of Mercer, Pennsylvania, have been staging heavy equipment near the bridge over the past few days, including road road closure and detour signs.
Earlier this month, Clark said the project's official detour route would be Interstate 70 between the two Elm Grove on/off ramps and the Washington Avenue exit. He said the city streets that bypass the bridge in that area are not designed to handle that large of a traffic load.
Renovations to the structure are scheduled to include repairs to the stone foundation and excavation and repair work to the roadway and sidewalk, Clark said. Clark said the project has been "over a decade in the making," and includes environmental and historical clearances for the project.
Built in 1817 by pioneer Col. Moses Shepherd as part of National Road, the Stone Bridge, also known as Monument Place Bridge, is the oldest bridge in the state of West Virginia. The Stone Bridge was placed on the National Register of Historic Places on Aug. 21, 1981. Concrete sidewalks were added to the bridge in 1931, and in 1958, a concrete veneer was added to the structure. Since then, parts of the veneer have fallen off, revealing the stone masonry underneath.