Bogert’s Covered Bridge, the oldest bridge in Lehigh County, is showing its age.
The iconic covered bridge in Allentown’s Lehigh Parkway, which was built in 1841, is sagging over Little Lehigh Creek and the paint is peeling. It’s obvious to those who walk, run or ride their horse over the 145-foot-long structure that extensive work needs to be done.
That’s why the city and community partners are teaming up to renovate the span. The $2.5 million project will begin Sept. 15 and is scheduled to be completed in the second half of 2026. The bridge will be closed to all traffic during the construction.
“The plan is to raise the bridge and to address the sag in the middle of it,” Mandy Tolino, Allentown Department of Parks and Recreation director, said during an event Thursday to kick off the project. “Think of it as raising your car when it goes into the shop. We are going to be using as much of the existing resources on the bridge as possible. It will be using natural stone and natural slate on the roof, and as much of the wood we’re going to reclaim and use as possible.
“At the end of all this, we are going to have a brand new old bridge that is historically accurate. And it’s going to look as beautiful as it did in 1841,” she said.
Besides fixing the sag, the project will include rehabilitating the siding, adding fresh paint and installing a new slate roof.
Scott Pidcock, a trustee of the Harry C. Trexler Trust, said the namesake of the organization was born just 13 years after the bridge was built and that parks were “near and dear” to the late industrialist and army general.
“This is not easy,” Pidcock said of the rehabilitation project. “These structures are expensive and as cherished as they are, many do not survive. It will survive in what will become its third century as a result of this project. This will be a wonderful project, and we look forward to its successful conclusion.”
The project was funded through a combination of state, local and community grants. Additional funding came from the Trexler Trust, Friends of the Parks, the Theodore Burr Covered Bridge Society of Pennsylvania and the National Society for the Preservation of Covered Bridges.
Mayor Matt Tuerk, an avid runner who came to the event with some of his racing medals shaped like the bridge, said it’s an “iconic” part of the city’s park system.
“It’s so important to our identity here in the city of Allentown,” he said.
Ruffian Tittmann, executive director of the Allentown Parknership — an organization devoted to preserving park land and enhancing recreational opportunities in the city — said the bridge acts as a link between eras.
“It’s almost like a time travel machine,” she said. “We get to be here with all of these beautiful buildings in this landscape that’s such a natural treasure, it’s sweeping us away from the urban world. We have a little bit of noise here, but as you walk through Lehigh Parkway, you really are transported, and yet you’re so close to the hustle and bustle of downtown and the rest of the city life.”
A long history
Built to replace an 18th-century wood plank span, Bogert’s Bridge received its name from the family that owned the land along the Little Lehigh. It has a Burr Truss design that features two long arch trusses with abutments at both ends.
It served as a main route into the 20th century and carried car and truck traffic that used South 24th Street between Hamilton and Lehigh streets. A truck badly damaged it in 1956, splintering seven crossbeams. There was a second truck hit in 1957, damaging the roof. Local officials considered demolishing the bridge.
A group of citizens staged a letter-writing campaign to persuade PennDOT, which then owned it, to build a more modern bridge over the Little Lehigh a few hundred feet away. In 1964, ownership was transferred to Allentown, and its most recent renovation was completed that decade. Since then, Bogert’s Bridge has only been open to pedestrians.
Nancy Wilt, representing state Rep. Peter Schweyer, D-Lehigh, thanked those citizens for their foresight.
“I’m super stoked that those folks had that wherewithal to fight to preserve this history that we’re all standing in front of today,” she said, “and we really look forward to being here when we reopen it.”
Morning Call reporter Evan Jones can be reached at ejones@mcall.com.
