Jordan Pond Road Bridge

Jordan Pond Road Bridge

Historic American Engineering Record, National Park Service, J. Shannon Barras, 1994

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Amenities

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Scenic View/Photo Spot

Jordan Pond Road Bridge (1932) is one of 17 bridges constructed along 57 miles of carriage road on Mount Desert Island between 1917 and 1940. It carries the Seal Harbor (formerly Jordan Pond) road over the Day Mountain Carriage Road to provide a greater separation and sense of seclusion for the carriage road. As such the underside was faced with stone but the deck above for the town road was not ornamented.

The reinforced-concrete structure, measuring 85-feet long, and 19-feet 5-inches at its highest poing, is clad with quarry-faced ashlar granite, including the underside of the arch.

The segmental arch spans 26-feet 8-inches with irregular radiating voussoirs. The parapet walls have granite capstones laid alternately vertically and horizontally, the vertical stones projecting slightly above the horizontal stones. The solid stone parapet walls are composed of both rock-face ashlar and squared, rock-face boulders. Long masonry retaining walls flank the road on either side of the bridge.

Beatrix Farrand provided detailed planting recommendations, including a heavy cover of Scotch pine as well as mountain ash and white pine along the upper portions of the banks and big groups of sumac, Japanese maple, barberry, and sweetbriar rose, and various vines on the lower portions.