(12/11) Four Points Bridge, one of the few remaining single lane wrought iron bridges in the County, which carries Keyesville Road over Toms Creek southeast of Emmitsburg, has been declared unsafe and will be closed indefinitely … pending a decision by Frederick County as to how to remedy the situation.

The county Division of Public Works issued an ‘emergency road closure’ on December 10 notifying the public that Four Points Bridge "will be closed due to safety concerns of the bridge structure." The bridge was closed-off the day following the notice and detour signs were posted.

Engineer Amanda Radcliffe, county Division of Public Works, told the News-Journal that a crack in the bridge was discovered "during routine inspection by the county's consultant for bridge inspections," and that the damage was described as having appeared in a "critical member (structure)" of the bridge.

Radcliffe stated the assessment of the needed repairs is still in the early stages, and until the assessment and work is completed, the bridge will remain closed. However, she stated that it presently appears that the bridge will be repaired (as opposed to being replaced). Because the assessment is still ongoing, the duration of the closure "is unknown at this time."

The county engineer said the posted detour route is from Keysville Road to Four Points Road to Sixes Bridge Road to Grimes Road to Sixes Road to Keysville Road. (Of course, anyone who knows the area knows that a shorter way around the bridge is to simply go down Route 140 to Four Points Bridge and then to Simmons Road, which dead ends onto Keysville Road.)

The Four Points Bridge was erected over Toms Creek in the American Centennial year of 1876, also the having been same year General Armstrong Custer and his Seventh Cavalry met their fate at Little Big Horn. The 103-foot bridge was constructed of wrought iron, being that metal was beginning to rapidly replace the wooden structures that had spanned the nation’s streams and rivers for nearly a century. The last wooden covered bridge built in the United States was in 1875.

The single-span bridge was built by the Wrought Iron Bridge Company of Canton, Ohio, who held the patent on the Pratt-style truss-work (which refers to the manner in which the support beams are arranged) utilized. The bridge was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1978.

In 1996, while the bridge was undergoing restoration work, which entailed the bridge being wrapper in tarps, Hurricane Fran hit the area, causing the water in Tom’s Creek, which funnels runoff form as far away as Fairfield into the Monocacy River, to rise almost 15 feet. As the bolts holding the bridge to the its abutments (the stonework upon which the ends of a bridge rest) had been removed, when the water reached the level of the bridge, the tarps acted like a dam, and the bridge was swept off its abutments and washed 200 yards down the creek.

After surviving the damage, the county proposed replacing the bridge with a two lane concrete bridge. The local community however successfully rallied in opposition to a county proposal. Following a year-long effort to manufacture replacement parts, the ‘mangled’ bridge was straightened and reset on its abutments to the sound of cheers of local residents. Historicbridge.org stated that the effort to reset and restore the bridge serves as an example of "a difficult preservation-project completed successfully."