Set between New Concord and Cambridge, Ohio, the Peters Creek S Bridge is one of the more distinctive survivals of the old National Road. Built in 1828 where U.S. Route 40 crossed Peters Creek, it was one of several masonry S bridges constructed in Ohio and Pennsylvania during the great era of early western road building. Measuring about 130 feet long and 26 feet wide, the bridge carried travelers over the creek on a single 30-foot stone arch set perpendicular to the stream, while the roadway curved on either side in the unusual form that gave the bridge its name.
That shape was not ornamental so much as practical. Built of cut stone laid in substantial courses, with a brick floor, the bridge’s curves eased the approaches, reduced the length of arch required, avoided steeper grades, and helped protect the structure from erosion. Its site also reflected an older transportation corridor: in 1803, Zane’s Trace crossed Peters Creek a few hundred yards to the north on a log crossing, showing that this had long been an important passage through eastern Ohio. When the National Road was later improved for modern traffic, even the bridge changed with the times. During World War I, the road from Cumberland, Maryland, to Vandalia, Illinois, was paved in brick to support military traffic, and the Peters Creek S Bridge was among the last sections to receive that treatment in 1919.
By 1936, preservation sentiment had already gathered around the bridge. That year, the Ohio Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution persuaded the Ohio Highway Department to route traffic around the old crossing rather than replace it. Even so, time and floodwaters nearly finished what modernization had not. After four successive floods in 2005 and years of neglect, the bridge had deteriorated so badly that ordinary repairs would no longer suffice. A major rehabilitation begun in the spring of 2007 and completed that November saved the structure, rebuilding and strengthening much of it with modern materials while preserving the form of one of the National Road’s most memorable crossings.
