HISTORICAL DISCOVERIES--
A delightful benefit of Geocaching

While the huge majority of folks our age likely are dawdling in more pedestrian activities, Geocaching keeps us sailing about where discoveries like this covered bridge are a routine but delightful experience.

This dandy is hidden in plain sight on a rural road in Wyandot County about 8 miles southeast of Upper Sandusky, OH.

It spans the Sandusky River on County Road 130 just south of County Road 62.  More specifically, use the "coordinate" function of your car GPS and insert the following:  N 40 46.227 and W 083 10.142.

Or, take a peek at the Ohio Atlas and Gazetteer, page 47.  You will see a little covered bridge symbol over there to the right in Antrim Township.  You have that publication, don't you!  The Gazetteers of each of our states are the back roads "Bible" for this marvelous country of ours.

The numbers given above are the decimal equivalent latitude and longitude coordinates.  With these numbers we can find (usually) a thimble-sized container deep in the woods somewhere.  As you can then imagine, finding a covered bridge is, comparatively, a piece of cake.

Those numbers represent a very precisely defined point on Earth, in this case 40 degrees and 46.227 minutes North of the Equator and 83 degrees, 10.142 minutes West of the Prime Meridian.

In the era of their popularity, covered bridges were built mostly of wood; then, the principal material of construction.  Since wood tends to rot over time the bridges had to be protected hence the side
walls and roofs.

Often the span was large.  In this case 94 feet.  Since wood is not as strong as steel, the main support design involved trusses, the crisscross shape visible along the sides.  They made up for the relative lack of strength with thickness.  Note the width of the sidewall ends in the top photo. 

The bridge was built in 1878 and rehabilitated in 1994.