BELMONT COUNTY, Ohio (WTRF) –
There’s history you can learn out of a book. Then there’s history you can learn by being there.
5th graders from Bridgeport Elementary School took a field trip to the Blaine S-Bridge Friday where everything looked like it might have almost 200 years ago.
“And you had settlers who were trying to go west so they could start a new life. Also had people who had already gone westward and they needed to transport their goods to the eastern markets. So this road literally was the Main Street of America for many years.”
John S. Marshall | Ohio National Road Association
5th graders swarmed into the area, amazed at what they had never known was there. They visited five stations including a horse drawn carriage.
“And then there’s the antique cars which they love getting into them. The antique cars are the actual cars that rode on this road.”
Kim Mokros
Pease Township Association #8
“When my car was built, Lindbergh had just made the trip across the Atlantic Ocean from New York to Paris.”
Jeff Kirk
Owner of 1927 Willy’s Knight automobile
“It’s in the shape of an S because you had to go around the hill instead of through the hill. If you notice in the beginning going westbound it’s straight. And then once you get to the top of the bridge, it has to go to the right.”
Gordie Longshaw
Teacher and local historian
Students learned it’s a three-arch bridge, a style dating back to the Roman Empire.
At the schoolmarm station, they learned games their 1800s counterparts would have played in the schoolyard.
The bridge no longer transports traffic, but it effectively transports children and adults back in history.
