The Travelling Newport-Gap Pike and Mt. Cuba Bridge

The Newport-Gap Pike bridge
in its original location, 1921

I have to admit that this post is a follow-up that took way, way too long to come about. Like, kids are in middle school now who weren't even born when I wrote the original part of this story. Back in September 2010, I did a post entitled "Marshallton's Travelling Bridge", which I later realized was not completely accurate. In that post I stated that the bridge installed over Red Clay Creek in Marshallton (Newport/Duncan Road) in about 1900 was moved in 1925 to another location across Red Clay Creek. Then, 45 years later, it was moved yet again to the site where it remains to this day.

To be fair, much of that post is correct, with two glaring exceptions -- I had the wrong bridge and an incorrect first move date. I think I realized that fairly early on, but I never got around to actually giving the correct information. However, very recently a commenter (thank you, Larry Davis!) asked about a story he had heard in his younger days, about how the Newport-Gap Pike bridge over Red Clay Creek at Greenbank had been repurposed somewhere else. That immediately rang a bell with me, and here we are. Yes, Larry, you were right.

It turns out that it was not the Marshallton bridge that has travelled around -- it's the Newport-Gap Pike bridge. They are very similar bridges, both being Pratt Pony Truss bridges. The Pratt Truss design was invented in 1844 and was one of the more common designs in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries, both for railroad and roadway bridges. The "Pony" designation indicates that the trusses are not connected at the top. I haven't been able to determine when this particular bridge was built, but I did find an 1884 newspaper article about New Castle County bridges that did indicate that there was an iron truss bridge in place at that time. It's quite possible that this is the same bridge.