Historic Horse and Footbridge Restored by Student Interns and NPS Staff

NPS Staff and Mather student interns pose for a photo while taking a break from working.

Mikayla Rovenolt/NPS

Morristown, N.J. – Stephen T. Mather Building Arts & Craftsmanship High School graduates, National Park Service employees, Mather High School Success Via Apprenticeship (SVA) members, and Student Conservation Association (SCA) interns, with their group leader, completed a horse and footbridge restoration project at Morristown National Historic Park in August 2022.

A bridge ribbon cutting ceremony was held on Aug. 19 at the bridge’s location on the Old Camp Trail within the park. Morristown’s park rangers and trail volunteers attended to congratulate the staff and students who fixed the trail bridge.

The project was desperately needed due to erosion of soil and stones that supported the bridge and made it unsafe for park goers to use. The original bridge was built in 1939 by the Civilian Conservation Corps and was most recently fixed in 1993.

The restoration project is part of the National Park Service’ continuous effort to preserve and restore their parks and park facilities. The NPS’ Historic Architecture, Conservation, and Engineering team (HACE) led the project that the students and recent graduates completed.

“Currently, we’re working for the smaller parks in this area [Morristown] doing incremental projects that HACE is equipped to do with small staffs in smaller parks,” Tim Henderson, a member of the New York HACE team, said.

The Mather graduates, Maximilian McKinley and Adam Richardson, were assigned to the project as part of the American Conservation Experience’s Emerging Professionals in Conservation program (ACE EPIC). ACE EPIC’s mission is to provide recent graduates with hands-on work experience alongside mentors and prepare them to be “the next generation of resource and land managers.”

Working with them was another Mather graduate, Joshua Rivera class of 2018, who is working to become a career technical educator, CTE, at Mather High School. Rivera was assigned to the project by the SVA program.

“I’m currently on my worksite rotation so my internship is with the NPS,” Rivera said. “I just finished up my school site internship with Mather so I am placed in the industry for the summer, until September, and then I’ll be right back at Mather.”

For the Student Conservation Association students, this project not only offered work experience, but a chance to meet other students and an opportunity to learn about public service. Their group leader, Docker Clark, said that their job involved assisting with the removal of the old bridge and filling in the dug up trail for the new, lengthened bridge.

“We’re not just working on this bridge, we’ve worked on some other places as well,” Clark said. “We’ve hiked around pretty much this entire park and I’ll stop the kids periodically on these hikes and we’ll talk about certain environmental concepts…alongside this trail work.”

Matthew Jacobs, the student liaison between Mather High School and the NPS, emphasized how important student work, like the work done at the bridge, is to our various communities and to public service.

“I think it’s really cool that now, 2022, these Mather students have been able to make their mark and continue the legacy of [the CCC],” Jacobs said. “Young people do really meaningful work for the parks and the visitors that come through here.”

Article and photos by Mikayla Rovenolt/NPS

Mather interns Max and Adam work together to restore the historic wooden bridge.

Mikayla Rovenolt/NPS