Repairs are starting on one of Bucks County’s most iconic covered bridges after Hurricane Ida ripped it from its concrete supports three years ago, writes JD Mullane for Bucks County Courier Times.

The Perkasie Borough Council voted Sept. 3 to award a $195,030 engineering and rehab contract to Wood Research and Development for the 200-year-old South Perkasie Covered Bridge.

The repairs begin in early October and are expected to cost about $1 million, covered largely through federal and state grant money.

The repairs will finish in January 2025 and the bridge will reopen to the public in August 2025.

The South Perkasie span is unique because it sits in Lenape Park, on land.

The bridge was built in 1832 to span Pleasant Spring Creek but it was condemned in the late 1950s when it couldn’t handle increased traffic volume.

Locals rallied and saved it, and it was relocated a mile to Lenape Park.

“It is the third-oldest Town Lattice style covered bridge in the United States and a special example of an original covered bridge,” said Scott Bomboy, chair of the council’s historical committee and the Bucks County Covered Bridge Society.

Read more about this unique covered bridge in the Bucks County Courier Times.