NORWAY — One of the two historic granite bridge posts on Main Street is expected to be completed as early as this week.

David Lynch of DMT Construction in Lewiston said the post on the westbound side of Main Street should be done Friday; the eastbound side next week. At that time, an electrician will install globe bulbs on the top of the posts and run electricity to light them.

Lynch said the work to restore the post was not easy. The hardest part was to get it to match the look of the original and to make the form. The base will be bigger and wider than the original.

“You can’t just buy these,” he said. “It took two tries to make it right to get it to look right,” he said.

Lynch said the form was made after taking the dimensions of the original post that could not be reused because of years of deterioration.

To match the stone work in the cement, Lynch said the company went to several areas to pick stones of different colors. Those stones were put by hand in the cement along with existing smaller stones that were already in the mix. The quartz stone is not as large as the original that can still be seen in the base of the bridge.

Once the cement was poured into the form and hardened, it had to be sandblasted to bring out the stone,  Lynch said.

A 2-inch pipe was also snaked down the post and a conduit was placed on the outside. Electrical wire will be run put down the pipe into the conduit and run 40 feet under the bridge to connect to the other side, Lynch said.

He said he has worked on other concrete structures with precast stones and other similar bridges, such as in Acadia National Park, but none quite like the one in Norway.

While no one seems to know the history behind the bridge, an undated photograph of the bridge exists and shows it with a round white globe on top of the post, said local businessman Tony Morra, who suggested the bridge be repaired last year.

Town historian and Norway Historical Society curator Charles Longley said Thursday that he knows the bridge was there in 1939 when he was attending second grade in the nearby school.

The entire restoration project will cost about $11,000 and once completed will restore the bridge base, the post and light fixture.

ldixon@sunjournal.com

David Lynch, foreground, and Adam Burn of DMT Construction in Lewiston worked Thursday on the base of the Quartz Bridge on Main Street in Norway. in preparation for the new post to eventually be lit up after years of neglect.

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