Keeseville Historic Bridges has started an online petition to save Keeseville’s three historic bridges–the “Upper Bridge,” the “Swing Bridge” (or “Walking Bridge”), and the Old State Road Bridge at Ausable Chasm.
Sign the petition and follow Save Keeseville’s Historic Bridges on Facebook.
The Anderson Falls Heritage Society supports the efforts of the Keeseville Historic Bridges organization to restore and protect the historic bridges in Keeseville and Ausable Chasm. As an organization devoted to preserving the history of this area, we recognize the importance of these bridges as historical landmarks.
The importance of two of these bridges, the Upper Bridge and Swing Bridge, has in fact already been officially recognized by the American Society of Civil Engineers, which in 1987 designated them as National Historic Civil Engineering Landmarks. The Old State Road Bridge at Ausable Chasm is also a very rare example of its type of construction, as is documented on the historicbridges.org website. The destruction of any of these bridges would represent a loss not only to our local history, but to engineering history as well.
These bridges do more than connect the towns of Ausable and Chesterfield, and Clinton and Essex Counties; they connect our past to our present. It is our hope that these bridges will be restored and maintained so that these connections may be extended well into the future.
Garth J. Houde, AFHS President