Covered bridge Preservation National Best Practices Conference
(Text adapted from www.uvm.edu/coveredbridges/conference/2003.html and from the conference agenda)
University of Vermont, Burlington, Vermont, June 5-7, 2003 - The Best Practices, Care and Repair of Covered Bridges National Conference was held for highway engineers, covered bridge maintenance personnel, fund raisers for the preservation of covered bridges, covered bridge preservation organizations, historic preservationists, general contractors, structural engineers, covered bridge historians, and community members.
The conference was organized into two tracks featuring bridge preservation case studies, best practices in maintaining covered bridges, engineering, covered bridge history and tourism strategies.
Titles and authors of papers presented
The conference proceedings will be published in print and in on-line formats. Watch the website address given above for availability.
| Title | Author |
| The Value of Old Bridges | Eric DeLony, Chief, Historic American Engineering Record |
| Who Built the Covered Bridges? The Social Organization of Building | Joseph Conwill |
| Timber Crossings | Robert L. McCullough |
| From Craft to Science: Early American Wooden Covered Bridges | Lola Bennett |
| Engineering Analysis of Covered Wooden Bridges from the HAER Summer 2002 Project | Ben Schafer |
| Analyzing Covered Bridges for Live Loads | Robert H. Durfee |
| Rigorous Structural Analysis and Load Rasing of Historic Town Lattice Trusses | Robert H. Canham |
| The Tohickon Aqueduct | William Collins |
| Smith Trusses: Bringing Covered Bridges into the Industrial Age | Mathew Reckard |
| Covered Bridges and the Tourism Economy | Anne Lynk |
| In-Kind Repair of Wood Truss Highway Bridges: Strategies and Options for Keeping Them in Use | Jan Lewandoski |
| Burfordville Covered Bridge Restoration: A Case Study | Jack Smoot |
| Rehabilitation of the Wawona Covered Bridge: A Balance of Engineering Requirements and Historic Preservation Ethics | Craig Struble |
| Restoration Philosophy for Covered Bridges: Old vs. New | Arnold Milton Graton Jr. |
| Cambridge Poland/Junction Covered Bridge | David J. Hoyne |
| The Stabilization of King's Covered Bridge | Leon Buckwalter |
| Wood Treating Techniques for Preserving Pieces of History | M.G. Sanders and T.L. Amburgey |
| Condition Assessment of Timber Using Resistance Drilling and Digital Radioscopy | Ronald W. Anthony |
| Preserving Historic Covered Bridges Using Glass Fiber Reinforced Polymers | Samer H. Petro |
| Engineering Needs of Covered Bridges | David C. Fischetti |
| Structural Behavior and Maintenance of Prestressed Covered Bridges | Dario Gasparini |
| Analyzing Those Intriguing Town Lattice Trusses | Phillip C. Pierce |
| Historic Covered Bridge Rehabilitations - Lessons Learned | Sean T. James |
| Rehabilitation of the Cooley Covered Bridge | Jay Messier |
| Steps Toward Reaching a Consensus for Rehabilitating and Upgrading a 150-Year-Old Covered Bridge: A Case Study | Willy F. Grimmke |
| A Case Study of the HAER Summer Recording Team of 2002 | Christopher Marston |
| Documentation and Preservation of Covered Bridges in Lane County | Michiko Tanaka |
| Protecting Indiana's Covered Bridges, One Person's Approach | Jim Barker |
| Development and Application of an Historic Covered Bridge Preservation Plan | A presentation from the Vermont Historic Covered Bridge Committee: Susan Scribner, Warren Tripp, Nancy Boone, and Eric Gilbertson |
| The Burlington Charter for Covered Bridges - a suggested statement of principles | Prof. Thomas D. Visser |
| The Case for Building New Covered Bridges | Phillip C. Pierce |
| Fire Protection and Fire Prevention on Covered Bridges | Robert H. Durfee |
The conference was Sponsored by the: National Park Service, Historic Preservation Training Center; NPS Historic American Engineering Record; National Covered Bridge Research Program; Federal Highway Administration; Historic Windsor, The Preservation Education Institute; Historic Preservation Program; and the College of Arts & Sciences, University of Vermont.
Among the many cosponsors were the American Society of Civil Engineers, History and Heritage Committee, and The National Society for the Preservation of Covered Bridges, Inc.
The Conference was the first of its kind to collect the vast array of information that exists on covered bridges by inviting all those concerned with covered bridge preservation to participate. A goal of the conference was to develop a national reference base for evaluating various treatments of historic covered bridges in ways that will maintain their historic integrity as National Register properties.
The conference was part of the National Historic Covered Bridge Program funded under Section 1224(b) of the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century.
