First came a book, then a movie called “The Bridges of Madison County.” It took place in Iowa and the title referenced the many covered bridges common to the area. Apparently the plot involved a love affair or so I’ve inferred from summaries.
I neither read the novel nor saw the film because I never felt part of the target audience I suppose. Nonetheless I thought about the title and I stole it for today’s Twelve Mile Circle. The rest of the article had no relation to it whatsoever. Except for a bunch of bridges.
To The Bikes!
I felt a bit skeptical when a friend invited me on a 50-mile bike ride through northern Frederick County, Maryland one recent Saturday morning. I’m an urban biker primarily — with one notable recent exception — and I try to stick to paved off-road trails.
I tend to stay away from actual roads unless they include dedicated bicycle lanes for fear of someone plowing into me while texting behind the wheel or something. Traffic is heavy and dangerous where I live so I wasn’t sure how I felt about an extended ride on streets, even rural ones. I’ve changed my mind, though. The roads east of Thurmont seemed exceptionally well maintained with minimal traffic. They were better than my local trails. I think I saw more bikes than cars during the ride.
My friend chose a route that featured four of Frederick’s historic bridges. The map above showed their relative placement although not the actual route we biked. I’m not sure where we went exactly, to tell the truth. We meandered around until we hit the desired distance; I simply played follow-the-leader. The course involved a roughly counterclockwise oval north of the City of Frederick, east of U.S. Route 15, crossing paths with the bridges in succession as the morning unfolded.
LeGore Bridge
We first encountered the LeGore Bridge over the Monocacy River (map). A steep downhill led to a pull-off where I stopped for photos. The website Historic Bridges noted that James LeGore built this bridge around 1900 to provide a convenient path to his nearby stone quarry. Naturally, owning a quarry, he favored stone construction for his imposing five-arch structure. However, it also hid one horrible twist of fate within its history. His son George jumped from the bridge, committing suicide in 1930.
Had I taken this photo maybe 3 or 4 seconds later, I would have captured a scary bicycle wreck. Some guy barreled way too fast down the steep rightward slope approaching the bridge and he couldn’t hold the curve. He flew across the opposite lane and whacked into a guardrail immediately behind me as I stood there taking pictures.
He spilled onto the deck, tumbled a couple of times and somehow suffered only a bent wheel plus an unpleasant scrape on his forearm and some damaged pride. His fancy multi-thousand dollar bike might have been toast too. We didn’t stick around long enough to find out after making sure he was okay. It was entirely his own fault. He ignored the several ominous road signs leading down to the bridge.
Roddy Road Bridge
We rambled on for awhile until we approached the Roddy Road bridge over Owen’s Creek (map). This marked the first of three covered bridges in Frederick County, with only three to five other ones in the entire state of Maryland (sources vary on that point). The most direct automobile route appears in the county’s Historic Covered Bridges Driving Tour if anyone wants to take the easy way out.
The Roddy family built their bridge across Owens Creek circa 1856. It was the smallest of the three covered bridges in Frederick, only 40 feet long. Rumor had it that “Confederate General JEB Stuart and his cavalry crossed Roddy Road Covered Bridge on July 5, 1863 during the Gettysburg campaign of the Civil War.” Of course, just about every spot in this corner of Maryland had a Civil War connection. Troops traipsed through here all the time between major campaigns like Antietam and Gettysburg. I imagine I could draw a mile-wide circle anywhere in the county and find something of Civil War significance there.
Loy’s Station Bridge
If JEB Stuart crossed the Roddy Road bridge then one shouldn’t be surprised that Union general George Meade allegedly crossed Loy’s Station Bridge over Owen’s Creek a few days later in pursuit of fleeing Confederates after the battle (map). Loy’s Station Bridge didn’t exist until about 1860 so Meade used a structure practically brand new. Unfortunately an arsonist torched the bridge in 1991. The rebuilt bridge incorporated as many elements as possible from the original bridge, including “hardware, rafters and braces.”
This was probably the most impressive of the bridges we saw during our ride. It looked like what would be expect of a covered bridge, and placed in a beautiful setting with an adjacent park.
Utica Mills Bridge
Near the end of the ride we rumbled through the Utica Mills bridge over Fishing Creek (map). This structure had an interesting history. A bridge existed nearby on the Monocacy River beginning around 1850, however it washed away during the same deluge responsible for the horrific Johnstown Flood of 1889. Builders salvaged wood from that earlier bridge to create the Utica Mills crossing. It was getting a fresh coat of red paint the day we cycled over its planks.
I think I’ll need to return to northern Frederick County for further cycling adventures sometime soon.
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