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Stone Bridge Project

Historic Stone Bridge

NPS Photo

 

Construction to the historic Stone Bridge at Manassas National Battlefield will begin the week of October 9 and is expected to wrap up in January 2018. The bridge will remain open during most of the work. For one to two weeks in late November, the bridge will close while crews replace the surface people walk across.

 

Stone Bridge Construction

While contemporary methods and materials will be used to ensure long-term durability, this work will not change the bridge’s historic look and feel.

Construction includes:

• Stabilizing the bridge foundation
• Repairing historic stone masonry
• Re-paving the surface of the bridge

Additional work includes repairing damage to the center pier caused by years of erosion and replacing the deteriorating cement coating on the underside of the bridge. Missing and damaged stones on the exterior of the bridge will be replaced and repaired using techniques employed when the bridge was completed in the 1880s.

 

1940 view of the historic Stone Bridge

NPS Photo

About the Historic Stone Bridge

During the First Battle of Manassas, Union artillerists positioned east of the bridge fired the opening shots of the battle over the stream crossing the morning of July 21, 1861. Originally built around 1825, Stone Bridge survived the First Battle of Manassas only to have Confederate forces destroy the span in 1862. Union army engineers constructed a temporary wooden span over the bridge ruins in 1862. The present-day Stone Bridge was completed in the 1880s on site of the earlier bridge, and remained open to vehicles until the mid 1920s.