Otter Stream Bridges – Milford ME

City:
Milford, ME

Site Type:
Roads, Bridges, and Tunnels, Infrastructure and Utilities

New Deal Agencies:
Public Works Funding, Public Works Administration (PWA), Bureau of Public Roads (BPR)

Started:
1936

Completed:
1936

Quality of Information:
Very Good

Marked:
No

Description

2 bridges along the Otter Chain Ponds, the first was a 66 foot steel and concrete stringer bridge and the 2nd was a 210 foot Warren through truss bridge. Both were replaced in 2013.

A 1936 State Highway Commission report notes that the reconstruction of 26 bridges were
U.S. Works Program Flood Relief projects and were handled under the jurisdiction of the Bureau of Public
Roads, U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The March 1936 flood was one of the most destructive, resulting in the loss or damage of an estimated 150 bridges in Maine, believed to be the hardest hit of the New England states due to the force of the flood and crest of the ice pack on the Saco, Androscoggin, Kennebec, and Penobscot rivers. Assistance to the affected states in repairing and replacing bridges was given by the PWA through the U.S. Works Program Flood Replacement Project. The project totaled about $2.5 million of which about half was distributed to Maine.
Reconstruction or replacement of the flood-lost bridges was handled as a joint effort by the PWA and the state highway commission. In general, the smaller bridges were built by the WPA using its labor forces directed by regional and county administrators, and the larger bridges were handled like ordinary federal aid projects with the design and construction supervised by the state highway commission under the direction of the BPR with the PWA merely acting as a fiscal agent.

Source notes

2004 Maine DOT Historic Bridge Survey, Phase II Final Report & Historic Context.
Historic Bridges of Maine: 350 Years of Bridge and Roadway Design Edited by David E. Gardner & Lisa Churchill-Dickson

Site originally submitted by Andrew Laverdiere on July 14, 2021.

Location Info


332 County Rd
Milford, ME 04461
Penobscot County

Coordinates: 44.945666, -68.611510

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