What happens when your home is on a dead-end road on the far side of a river, and the bridge over that river needs to be replaced?

Life was a little bit different for the residents of the Smith Farm Road during the month when their new bridge was being built, and not just because of the inconvenience.

The three families who live on the Mason Township side of the bridge over the Pleasant River expected that they would need to get creative about transportation, and would need to plan ahead for their trips “out” during the bridge replacement project.

What they didn’t expect was the camaraderie that developed among the neighbors and the bridge crew alike.

“It’s been a real community experience,” said Wendy Youmans, who, with her husband, Ray Geiger, lives in one of two houses on Lupine Road, off the Smith Farm Road.

Engineer Jim Sysko designed the new bridge, and Andre and Flossie Bernier of Andre’s Construction tore out the old one in mid-August.

For the next month, residents of the road used a footbridge to cross the Pleasant River, leaving their cars parked on the Bethel side and making the trek from their homes on foot or by ATV or bicycle.

“We tend to come and go at similar times, so we’re catching up on each other’s lives and reinforcing our little community over here,” Youmans said during the period when the bridge was closed to motor vehicles.

Water and wind

The bridge and the portion of the Smith Farm Road that leads to it lie within the town of Bethel, but Oxford County Administrator Scott Cole said that since all of the residences served by the road are in Mason Township, the town and county had agreed to share equally in the cost of the bridge replacement.

 The county maintains roads in unorganized territories like Mason. Cole said the county commissioners could have sought funding from the state for the bridge project, but “the state would have built a bigger bridge, at a much higher cost.”

An analysis of the project showed that the local share of costs would have increased if the bridge had been constructed to state specifications.

Working with Sysko, the two county and town decided instead to reinforce the original abutments and build a new bridge that is similar in size to the old one, but includes a concrete deck.

The old bridge had withstood repeated floods in the spring, when the large volume of water carried by the Pleasant River typically causes the road across the fields to become submerged.

“The topography here is so gradual that the river easily leaves its banks,” said Cole. “We’re trying to determine if it’s worth putting in a relief culvert on the Mason Township side.” He described a relief culvert as “a high-volume, lowslung culvert” that would allow water that pours over the banks of the river and into the fields beside the Smith Farm Road to pass under the road, rather than over it.

“We felt it was worth having a hydrologist look at it,” said Cole, who visited the site with Rick Dunton, an engineer and project manager from Main-Land Development Consultants, during the construction.

“There have been times when there’s been whitewater over the road,” said Larry Fox, who has lived in his home in Mason for the past 15 years. “It would knock you right off your feet.”

Fox said when he and his wife, Lisa, first moved to their home on Lupine Road, he was determined to get across the river, even when it was flooding in the spring, and sometimes resorted to making the trip by canoe.

Now, he said, “I’ve accepted it. There are just times when you can’t get out.”

In addition to regular flooding, the open fields beside the Pleasant River are known for epic windstorms.

Flossie Bernier said that during one particularly windy day during the construction, welder Ed Bennett set his welding helmet down on the new deck of the bridge, and a gust of wind blew it into the river.

“He looked for it, but he never did find it,” she said.

“He’d like to get it back. He told the kids who swim here he’d give a $10 reward to anyone who can find it.”

A chance to talk and visit Dean Richmond, his wife, Deborah, and their four sons have lived on the historic Smith Farm since 2000. They raise about 25 longhorn cattle on the farm’s 150 acres, and sell their grass-fed beef locally. The family also keeps horses, goats, and chickens.

Richmond said it was definitely time for the previous bridge, which had a weight limit of 15 tons, to be replaced.

“We couldn’t get commercial vehicles across the old bridge,” he said, which presented a challenge when he needed to have animal feed delivered or sell timber he had cut on the Mason side of the river.

Once school started for their sons this year, the Richmond family had to get an early start in the mornings to allow them time to get to the bridge and make the crossing on foot. They kept a vehicle on the Mason side of the river to speed up the commute, and also used an ATV.

The morning crossing became a time to visit with neighbors and check in with the crew on their progress.

In spite of the extra work involved in being without a bridge for a month, “everyone is very cheery,” Richmond said during the construction, adding, “We all get along great, but we don’t usually get a lot of chances to talk and visit.”

Although Youmans conceded that the experience of living for a month in a place inaccessible by car had been “pretty challenging,” the human connections helped to make up for it.

“It’sbeenkindofsweetseeing the neighbors daily,” she said.

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