County seeks grant for McKee bridge

General

February 14, 2012

Jackson County has applied for a $550,000 federal grant to restore the historic McKee covered bridge spanning the upper Applegate River.

But it will be several months before officials will know whether the request is approved, said county engineer Mike Kuntz.

"The grant application materials don't specify when an award will be announced, but it will probably be sometime before the end of spring," he said. "We are in a hurry-up-and-wait mode now."

The covered bridge, closed to vehicular traffic since 1956, became off-limits to pedestrians last fall after inspectors determined its supporting timbers had suffered significant wood decay.

Built in 1917, the bridge is just off Upper Applegate Road, about 16 miles south of Jacksonville.

The grant request is through the Department of Transportation's National Historic Covered Bridge Preservation Program, which provides about $8 million a year in grants to repair or rehabilitate covered bridges around the country.

If the request is approved, the McKee Bridge Historical Society would be required to come up with a 10 percent matching fund of $55,000. While the bridge technically belongs to the county, the nonprofit society has taken on the responsibility for its upkeep and maintenance.

The work would take two to three years, Kuntz estimated.

Even if the grant does not come through, the historical society would raise funds to repair the bridge's most crucial structural problems, said society President Bob Van Heuit.

"We would still have to raise at least $50,000 or so to fix the chord (a structural beam) on the bridge that is very critical, starting to fail, actually," he said, referring to a failing support identified by inspectors last fall. "We are investigating a number of different organizations now that provide funds for different things that may be able to help."

The Oregon Bridge Engineering Co. urged county officials to close the bridge last October after completing an analysis of an inspection made earlier in the month. The firm had determined that a significant wood rotting problem found in the bottom chord of the north truss created a potential for collapse.

The fear was the McKee bridge could have a structural failure similar to that suffered by the historic Wimer covered bridge in 2003. The Wimer bridge has since been rebuilt.

The McKee bridge underwent an $88,000 restoration effort in the mid-1990s that included structural reinforcement and new cedar siding. The project was paid for by a grant provided by state lottery funds and individual contributions.

Like many of Oregon's covered bridges, the span design employs Howe truss construction, combining diagonal timbers and vertical iron rods.

Built by Jacksonville resident Jason Hartman and his brothers to allow easy crossing of the river by trucks hauling copper ore from the Blue Ledge Mine, McKee bridge was constructed on land donated by Adelbert "Deb" McKee.

The span is Oregon's fourth-oldest surviving covered bridge and the highest in the state at more than 40 feet above the stream during the average summer flow.

In addition to the McKee and Wimer covered bridges, there are two other covered bridges remaining in Jackson County. They include the transplanted Antelope covered bridge in Eagle Point, which is under the city's jurisdiction and open only to pedestrians, and the Lake Creek covered bridge, which sits on private property.