DAVE CAREW/For the Lincoln Journal Star | Posted: Sunday, July 1, 2007 7:00 pm
COOK — Thanks to Hollywood, the covered bridges of Madison County, Iowa, are well known. But six years before the movie hit the big screen, a covered bridge that you can drive or walk across also was built in Southeast Nebraska.
In 1988, the village of Cook in Johnson County had funds left over from the village’s centennial celebration. A community meeting was held to decide how to use the funds. What special thing could the town do with the surplus?
Duane Carman suggested a covered bridge.
He’d never seen one. “The idea just popped into my head,” he told his wife, Darlene, after the meeting.
Some in the audience thought he was crazy. One businessman asked, “Why would we want to do that?” But the majority decided to look into the project.
Cook had the perfect location. Five years earlier, Johnson County had condemned and closed a highway bridge that spanned a creek between Cook’s two parks, Triangle and Windmill.
Cook librarian Mary Alice Smith researched covered bridges. A town committee, following up on Carman’s idea, checked with the Nebraska State Historical Society and was told there were no covered bridges in Nebraska.
The committee chose to pattern the Cook bridge after one located in Vermont, while adding overhangs and a walkway similar to those on a New York bridge.
The Carmans’ son, Michael, who was studying architecture at Southeast Community College in Milford, drew up plans for the bridge. Five area families donated old barns and houses to provide material for the bridge.
Volunteers tore down the old buildings. Others pulled nails and sorted the salvaged lumber. Johnson County volunteered some preparation work. A contractor removed the old bridge at no charge. Railroad timbers were laid for the base, then overlaid with cypress planks treated with preservative. Some wood pegs were used in the assembly.
The bridge, open to motor vehicles and foot traffic at all times, is 42 feet long and 20 feet wide. It has an 18-ton capacity. The opening is 14 feet high. The exterior is covered with shingles.
The bridge was dedicated as Centennial Bridge on Oct. 1, 1989. The first vehicle across the bridge was a horse-drawn carriage.
One of the goals of the bridge construction was to provide a project that everyone in the community could get behind.
“I still have the list of volunteers that Duane kept,” Darlene Carman said. “There were 115 of them. That is amazing participation from a town with only 300 people.” The 2,000 hours of labor they provided kept the total bridge outlay to just $5,000.
Rick Roesner, who was head of the Cook Community Improvement Board at the time, hoped the covered bridge might bring tourists and their business to Cook.
It has indeed been a visitor attraction. Tourists by the carload and busload have come to view the bridge. But they have not made a noticeable contribution to Cook’s economy.
Duane Carman, who died in 1996, said after the bridge’s construction, “I did not promote the bridge idea for publicity or awards. I wanted the people to enjoy getting together and for everyone to like and enjoy the bridge.”
Nevertheless, Cook won the Best Little Town in America contest in 1992. There were 800 towns of less than 1,000 population entered in the contest.
Duane and Darlene’s son Robert married his wife, Deb, on the bridge June 24, 1992.
After Duane’s death in 1996, the Centennial Bridge was renamed the Duane Carman Bridge in honor of his efforts to make the bridge a reality.
The bridge was built to last, but major repairs had to be made a few years ago after termites made the structure vulnerable to high winds. A storm in early 2000 broke some of the uprights.
Also, a ‘Pay Toll’ sign listing prices of the 1800s, such as 10 cents for a horse and rider, was vandalized and had to be removed.
Cook will hold its annual community celebration July 21. Visitors can enjoy a barbecue, attend a car show — and walk or drive across the bridge.