N&W has been working with C.S. Davidson (CSD), PennDOT District 8-0, and York County on planning and permitting for the rehabilitation of County Bridge #226 over Bermudian Creek in Washington Township, York County, PA. The bridge is an unusual composite structure consisting of two (2) separate wrought iron truss bridges, moved to their present locations in 1917 after a wooden covered bridge had collapsed or had been washed away. The dual-component bridge had previously been found eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places as the result of documentation assembled by a private citizen in 1996.
N&W provided CSD with detailed information on the history of the bridge, and extensive photodocumentation of the characteristics that rendered the bridges National Register-eligible. N&W also evaluated the Krall’s Mill property, with its unusual Federal-style brick farmhouse, for National Register eligibility; PA-SHPO found the property National Register-eligible in 2015. The information on the bridge and the farmhouse was incorporated by CSD into a rehabilitation feasibility study, which resulted in a consensus that the bridge would be rehabilitated.
A Phase I Archaeological Survey of the rehabilitation effort’s proposed Area of Potential Effect utilized soil probes, a metal detector, and targeted subsurface excavations in an attempt to locate the remains of a water-powered mill said to have once stood on the floodplain. Instead, the survey encountered a stratified historic refuse deposit, likely associated with the Krall’s Mill residence. At the end of the Phase I survey, N&W brokered a consensus with PennDOT agency personnel and Project Engineers, establishing that, in this instance, avoidance of the deposit was not feasible and a Phase II archaeological excavation would constitute the most cost-effective and efficient path forward. The Phase II investigation is currently in progress.