Four of the six remaining Madison County, Iowa bridges will be laser scanned for historical preservation purposes. These are the bridges made famous in the Robert James Waller book and Clint Eastwood movie. The $50,000 project is being funded by the US Federal Highway Administration. At one point there were 19 covered bridges, but time and in one case fire claimed the rest.
“It provides a good record that we can not only preserve the historical aspects … but we could also provide a record that would be accurate enough to rebuild the bridge if we needed to,” according to Mike Ritter, assistant director of the U.S. Forest Service’s Forest Products Laboratory, which is leading the project.
SightLine, LLC based in Milwaukee, WI is doing the work.
Photo by Charlie Neibergall
