Copyright Hartford Courant
With rotting and loose floorboards, holes in the roof and unsafe conditions for pedestrian traffic, the iconic Connecticut covered bridge had been closed to foot traffic since December 2022. Now, some 10 years after the first concerns about saving the iconic Killingworth’s Chatfield Hollow Covered Bridge were raised, a replica structure has been erected and open to the public once again. The work was under the auspices of the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection. Leading the charge to save the bridge was Cheryl Buckley, a member of Friends of Chatfield Hollow, along with her daughter, Martina Jakober, and her now late friend, Rhonda Levine. They wrote letters, made phone calls and visited Hartford to bring the issue to the attention of state lawmakers. “You have a 100 percent chance of not getting what you want if you don’t ask,” Buckley wrote in text. “(You get) a 50 percent chance if you ask and better odds if you persist.” State Sen. Christine Cohen, D-Guilford, whose district include Killingworth, former chair and now a member of the Environment Committee, has been a supporter of this cause since being elected in 2018. “Immediately after my election I started working with the Friends of Chatfield Hollow group, trying to understand what was needed in the park both as my constituents and at the time as chair of the Environment Committee,” she said. She said in the winter of 2021 “the new deputy commissioner of DEEP (Mason Trumble) wanted to talk about a couple of environmental matters and I suggested we take a hike at Chatfield Hollow so I could show him that the bridge was rotting.” “It was all part of the plan, and it worked, and we finally got some action,” she said. “He didn’t love seeing the bridge deteriorating like that at one of our treasured state parks.” Cohen praised Buckley’s work. “(She) has just been such a fierce advocate for that park and I’m so glad to see this come to fruition for her and for all of the park goers in the area,” she said. Brian Wilson, director of state parks, said the bridge had reached its lifespan, but it took years to get to the point of replacing it. “I believe it was around 2019 when folks were starting to take a real hard look at the conditions of it at that time,” Wilson said. “A lot of these projects take quite a bit of time, so here we are five, six years later and it’s at completion,” he said. “From conception of a project needing to be done, to securing the funding, permitting and construction bidding and administration of construction and everything done, even for a covered bridge, take us some time,” Wilson said. The covered bridge is in the exact same spot as the original bridge, spanning the Chatfield Hollow Brook, and “all in all it is mostly a replica of the pre-existing bridge,” said Wilson. State Rep. Chris Aniskovich, R-Clinton, which also includes Killingworth, said the finished product is in keeping with input from the public. “People were concerned that they didn’t want it changed,” he said. “They wanted it to stay the way it was because that was important to them.” “People want to continue to walk back and look at it and be able to say, ‘That’s the same bridge that I was at 40 years ago when I got married…or I got engaged,’” Aniskovich said. “There’s a lot of important things that happen (there) because it’s a beautiful location,” he said. Slight modifications, according to Wilson, include a steel truss system under the bridge to “help expand the longevity and the safety of the bridge for generations.” Other changes included “upgrades to allow for ADA accessibility, lowered windows to allow for more outward viewing from within the bridge span,” according to the signage at the construction site. The cost of the project was $553,850, funded by capital appropriations through the bond commission. The 412-acre park has 18 miles of hiking trails and attracts tens of thousands of visitors each year. In total, for the fiscal years 2024 and 2025, that state park system received $70 million. “These are funds that are now being put to work in these hundreds of projects across the state park system,” said Wilson. Wilson said “it’s fantastic” that the bridge is completed. “Every time that we can complete a project and shift that focus and the energy towards the many other project needs that we have, too, is a win for us,” he said. He said his department currently has over 100 projects open, statewide, across the park system. “For each one that we complete, we need to be adding two more to the list to keep up with everything that we have out there,” he said. Currently, within Chatfield Hollow, paving the roads and sidewalks and removal of 100 trees is ongoing. Aniskovich said that many people voiced concern about the trees being cut down, but it was an important part of the project since the roots of specific trees were growing underneath the road causing the roads to buckle. Connecticut has 110 state parks and 32 state forests, according to DEEP: bit.ly/4nFU8dg. Chatfield Hollow was designated as a state park in 1949 and its 412-acres is a popular destination for mountain biking, hiking, rock climbing, trout fishing, swimming and picnicking. Much of the work within the park was done in the 1930’s when the Civilian Conservation Corps created a recreation area within Cockaponset State Forest. It is believed that this is when the bridge was originally constructed. Cohen said this new bridge is wonderful for everyone who worked so hard to make it a reality. “When they broke ground on it, I think we were all doing the dances for joy because it just felt so good to have this win and to know that it was going to be restored very shortly,” she said. “Now that it’s come to fruition, it’s so, so exciting.”
