Skip to main content

Eustis Covered Bridge - Quebec

Image
By


Located near the former mining town of Eustis, the 90 foot long Eustis Covered Bridge is one of three covered bridges located in Quebec's Eastern Townships region that features a multiple Kingpost truss design. Built in 1908 over the Massawippi River at a scenic spot along Rue Stafford, the Eustis Covered Bridge is one of the last remaining remnants of the once thriving copper mining town of the same name. A century ago, the village of Eustis hosted a large mining complex, a number of company houses, general store, church, train station, and a baseball team. The covered bridge is open seasonally, from around April 15 to November 15 of any given year.

Like many covered bridges, the Eustis Covered Bridge has had a tumultuous history, having been saved from demolition during the 1990s and then later restored. After being improperly restored in 1998, the bridge was closed to traffic in 2008. Restoration to the covered bridge took place from June 2011 to November 2011, and then reopened to traffic in April 2012. The work for restoring the bridge to prime condition was completed by Hamlet Heavy Timberwork, Ltd. of Rigaud, Quebec at a cost of $596,000.

During the restoration, the bridge was hoisted off of its abutments, dismantled, and transported in pieces to an off site location. With exception of the original corner braces and some of the rafters, however, most of the truss work for the bridge was been replaced with new timber. The trusses were replaced because of a previous, poorly executed repair job some years ago which involved “cutting sections of the trusses, rendering the trusses ineffective. As a result of the restoration, the trusses were returned to their actual load bearing role, and the proper camber arch was restored to the lower chords of the structure.

I had the opportunity to visit the Eustis Covered Bridge and found a pull-off along the road near the bridge. From the pull-off, there is a short walk to the bridge and it is an easy bridge to explore.


Side profile of the Eustis Covered Bridge. There is a short trail off the bridge to get photos from the side.

Inside the covered bridge.

A headache bar has been installed to keep overheight vehicles from striking the portals of the covered bridge.

View of the north portal of the Eustis Covered Bridge.

Bridge plaque on the covered bridge, indicating the year the bridge was originally constructed.

View of the Massawippi River on a pleasant late September afternoon.


How to Get There:



Sources and Links:
Townships Heritage WebMagazine - The Return of the Eustis Bridge
Covered Bridges in Quebec - Eustis Bridge
Chemin des Cantons - Round Barns and Covered Bridges Route

Labels:
Location: Eustis, QC J0B 2C0, Canada

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Did Caltrans just kill the G26 cutout US Route shields?

By
The US Route System was formally created by the American Association of State Highway Officials during November 1926.  Through the history of the system the only state to which has elected to maintain cutout US Route shields has been California.  The G26 series cutout US Route shields have become a favorite in the road enthusiast hobby and are generally considered to be much more visually pleasing than the standard Federal Highway Administration variant.  However, the G26 shield series appears to have been killed off on January 18, 2026, when Caltrans updated their Manual of Uniform Traffic Control Devices.  This blog will examine the history of the US Route shield specifications in California and what is happening with the 2026 changes.  The blog cover photo is facing towards the terminus of California State Route 136 and at a G26-2 specification US Route 395 shield.  In the background Mount Whitney can be seen in the Sierra Nevada range.   ...
2 comments
Read more

May 2023 Ontario Trip (Part 3 of 3)

By
  Over the years, I have made plenty of trips to Ontario, crisscrossing the southern, central and eastern parts of the province. Living in Upstate New York, it's pretty easy to visit our neighbor to the north, or is that our neighbor to the west? Ottawa is one of my favorite cities to visit anywhere in the world, plus I've discovered the charm of Kingston, the waterfalls of Hamilton (which is on the same Niagara Escarpment that brings us Niagara Falls), the sheer beauty of the Bruce Peninsula, and more. But I hadn't explored much of Cottage Country. So I decided to change that, and what better time to go than over Memorial Day weekend, when the daylight is long and I have an extra day to explore. On the third and final day of my trip, I started in Huntsville and made my way through Muskoka District and Haliburton County, passing by many lakes along the way. I stopped in towns such as Dorset, Haliburton and Bancroft before making a beeline down to Belleville and then over th...
Post a Comment
Read more

Ghost Town Tuesday; Nichols, FL

By
A couple years ago I spent a lot of spare time exploring phosphate mining ghost towns in the Bone Valley of Polk County, Florida.  One ghost town in particular called Nichols on Polk County Route 676 west of Mulberry caught my eye due to a relative lack of documentation on ghosttowns.com. Nichols was created in 1905 during the early phosphate mining boom in the Bone Valley region.  For the time Nichols was unusual since it had company housing in the Nichols Mine site and private residences outside the gate.  Nichols is only about two miles west of Mulberry which probably made it a somewhat reasonable commute even by the wonky standards of the early 20th Century.  Most of the Bone Valley region was relatively remote which made commuting or homesteading impractical which is why there are so many ghost towns in the area.  The company housing section of Nichols was phased out and abandoned by 1950. The Nichols town site is largely abandoned and could "possibl...
4 comments
Read more