The South Bend Tribune from South Bend, Indiana • 113

Targets of Vandals Historic Covered Bridges THIS SE Dat AT WALE Sc 1 THIS COVERED BRIDGE at Rockville is one of 38 left in Indiana, which once boasted at least 152. Vandals have destroyed many of them. Rockville is one of the centers of an annual festival which opened Saturday. The covered bridges are the main attraction. The festival runs for 10 days, during By Grover Brinkman the peak of the fall color season.

COVERED BRIDGE BUFFS, hunt- Hamilton covered bridge was one of the ing out the structures still preserved in most senseless things I've heard of. I Indiana and Illinois (once Indiana had hope that some day the vandal or van152 and its neighbor 132) might be dals will realize what they've done by misled by a sign hanging from a roadside destroying a histerical treasure." marker at Hamilton, Ill. The sign points The burning of the Hamilton bridge to a covered bridge, and refers to it as leaves eight remaining in Illinois: The "The Longest Covered Bridge in Illi- Glenarm bridge, south of Springfield; nois." the Thompson Mill bridge near CowBut the bridge isn't there any more. den; Riddle Hill bridge near Springfield; Vandals set it afire recently. The his- Fames Bridge between Gladstone and toric landmark burned to the water's Oquawka; Greenbush bridge near the edge.

town of the same name; Wolf Creek bridge that spans historic Speen River INDIANA LOST a valuable covered northeast of Maquin; Red bridge near bridge recently when it was burned Princeton, and Mary's bridge at Chester. (supposedly by vandals). Missouri lost Actually, Illinois has 10 covered one in a flash flood. bridges. But one is in a private park and The vandals who put the torch to the the other, a new covered bridge spanHamilton bridge destroyed a historic ning the Sangamon near Mahomet, is structure 167 feet long, prized by histo- not considered historic because it was rians.

It withstood the rhythmic pound- built in 1965 as a tourist attraction in ing of horses' hooves, the weight of Lake of the Woods ferest preserve. hundreds of thousands of passenger cars and trucks, along with the relentless INDIANA FARES much better in force of periodic floods for some 88 the number of historic covered bridges. Parke County alone still has 38, and each Summer and winter, tourists visit the autumn holds a Covered Bridge Festival. historic covered bridges in southern In- The festival, which opened Saturday, is diana and in Illinois. Photos of covered always during the 10 days in October bridges adorn pages of encyclopedias and that include the second and third weekgeographies.

But the vandals who de- ends, to catch the peak of the Autumn stroy them never consider it. color. -Rockville, the county seat, is the host town. The covered bridge festival SAID ROBERT COCHRAN, presi- attracts thousands of visitors and has THIS MASS OF TWISTED STEEL and other debris is all that is left of a dent of the Hancock County, His- merited nationwide journalistic attencovered bridge at Hamilton, after vandals put the torch to it. torical Society: "The burning of the tion as well.

EIGHTEEN.