Carpenter’s Flats
2021 Bridgehunter Award Winner – Bridge Tour USA Award
Carpenter’s Flats Bridge is a historic Warren Steel Truss bridge over the Ausable River between Keeseville NY and Peru NY in Clinton County, New York. It was built by the American Bridge Company in 1941. The bridge is 255 feet (77.7 m) in length, 37 feet (11.3 m) wide, and 38 feet (11.6 m) in height.[2]
Owned By: New York State
History of the Carpenter’s Flats Bridge (Information Collected by Sean Reines)
Description
The historic Carpenter’s Flats Bridge spans the Main Branch of the Ausable River about two miles north of the hamlet and natural attraction called “Ausable Chasm.” This 255-foot long, steel “Warren Through Truss” bridge with steel I-beam infrastructure on a reinforced concrete deck was built in 1941 by the American Bridge Company. The bridge was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1999 as a well-preserved example of mid-20th century bridge engineering and construction. It is also significant for the role it has played in the region’s transportation history, carrying one of the region’s major north-south highways (Route 9) across the Main Branch of the Ausable River. In the 1800s and perhaps the early 1900s, the place where the bridge crosses the river was called Bagg’s Landing for the Baggs family that lived nearby.
As you can see, the bridge is in a very rural setting and is surrounded by woods and open fields. This bridge crossing is near the delta, or mouth, of the Ausable River. The Ausable River here is described as “broad, quiet, and meandering.” A couple miles upstream from here, the river emerges from the steep walls of Ausable Chasm and winds its way through a wooded landscape down to this point. After its waters pass under this bridge, the Ausable flows a few more miles northeast, through marshy lands, before emptying into Lake Champlain. In October 1765, prominent early settler, landowner, and colonial merchant William Gilliland passed this point when he made his way up the Ausable by boat from its mouth at Lake Champlain to Ausable Chasm.
The current bridge is actually the second one to be built at this location. The first one was constructed in 1913. Because this section of river is shallow and broad during much of the year, and usually has a slow current, there existed no bridge crossing here at all until 1913. Before 1913, crossing at this location was done by fording the river when the water level would allow it. The fordway catered to horses and horse-drawn wagons, as well as adventurous early automobile travelers. In fact, it was the increasing popularity of the automobile that influenced the construction of the first bridge here at Carpenter’s Flats.
By 1913, the automobile had arrived on the American transportation scene for good and was beginning to influence how Americans got around and vacationed. The amount of motor vehicle traffic coming to Ausable Chasm via Route 9 was rising and would continue to do so as the availability and popularity of cars increased. To accommodate its increasing motor vehicle traffic, Ausable Chasm funded construction of the first vehicle bridge across the Ausable River here at Carpenter’s Flats. Typically, it is the responsibility of the towns (in this case, the Town of Ausable and the Town of Peru) to fund construction of bridges within their boundaries. But, in this case, Ausable Chasm paid for the bridge, presumably to make it easier for the increasing numbers of northbound Route 9 motorists to get to the Chasm during the summer. The Chasm did indeed benefit from this because after construction of the bridge, “traffic across it averaged between 50 and 300 vehicles per hour during the summer months.” Construction of this crossing at Carpenter’s Flats was one of the final links in the completion of NYS Route 9 in this region.
Vehicular use continued to increase dramatically along Route 9 in the decades after construction of the 1913 bridge. By the 1930s, the rising automobile travel and truck transport necessitated replacement of the 1913 Carpenter’s Flats Bridge with a larger span better equipped to handle cars and trucks. Engineers at the New York State Department of Public Works prepared plans for this new bridge, and the American Bridge Company completed the current Carpenter’s Flats Bridge in 1941. The original color of the bridge was green. In 1994, the bridge received new railings and steel support beams, and was repainted to its current brown color.
Sources for this information
Steven Engelhart. National Register of Historic Places Nomination Form for “Carpenter’s Flats Bridge.” Clinton County, New York, 1998, Section number 7, Page 1; Section number 8, Pages 1 and 2. (Didn’t Use)
Steven Engelhart. “Carpenter’s Flats Bridge, Clinton County, New York.” National Register of Historic Places Nomination Form. 1998. Section number 7, Page 1; Section number 8, Pages 1 and 2. (Used)
Steven Engelhart. Crossing the River: Historic Bridges of the AuSable River, 9.
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Keeseville NY / Peru NY – Keeseville NY’s Historic Bridges
For More info: https://keesevillehistoricbridges.com/info/
https://historicbridges.org/bridges/browser/?bridgebrowser=newyork/ausableus9/
