Halpin Covered Bridge, Middlebury, Vermont, ca 1940s-1950s
Featured on this unused postcard is a color photograph by Warren Case & Frank L. Forward of the Halpin Bridge in Middlebury, Vermont. The card has the number 566 at the upper left corner on the reverse. There is also a blurb: “Swimming hole under an Old Covered Bridge setting, known as Halpin Bridge, Middlebury, Vermont. [photographers identified as Case and Forward]." The card was published by Forward’s Color Productions, Manchester, Vermont. Forward’s photography business focused on Vermont and New Hampshire from the 1950s through the 1970s. “The company used two different numbering systems: a five-digit number and a three-digit number that was often followed or preceded by VT. A link to the Vermont Historical Society is included below.
New England still has several covered bridges. Not much of this bridge can be seen on the card; however, Wikipedia has two pictures. The first picture shows a frontal view of the bridge.
[photo of the front of Halpin Covered Bridge from: Widipedia.org, link below]
[photo of interior lattice truss support from Wikipedia.org, link below]
This second picture shows the interior lattice truss structure of the bridge. The Halpin or High Covered Bridge, first used in 1850, is a wooden bridge that now rests on concrete abutments. The old abutments made of marble that was crumbling, were replaced with concrete in 1994. The bridge is located in a rural area and crosses the Muddy Branch of the New Haven River in Middlebury, Vermont. Originally the bridge was used by a local marble quarry operation. It is 66 feet or 20 meters long with a width of 16 ft or 4.9 m. It is a one lane bridge 41 ft or 12.5 m above the water. The name “High Covered Bridge” comes from it being the highest above the water covered bridge in the state of Vermont.
One of the photographers credited is Warren Elred Case, who was born 1924 in Baltimore, Maryland, and died 1994 in Middlebury, Vermont. A collection comprised of of 275 color scenes in Vermont taken by Case in the 1940s and 1950s can be found in the University of Vermont Libraries, Special Collections.
Frank Louis Forward, Jr. is the second photographer cited on the card. He was the president and owner of Forward’s Color Productions, Inc. located in Manchester, Vermont. Born in 1917 in Sandy Point, Newfoundland, Canada, Forward died in 2003 in Bennington, Vermont. Many of the cards published by Forward’s have his own photos on them, but the company also employed other photographers, such as Case.
For additional information, see:
https://vermonthistory.org/documents/findaid/ForwardsColorProductions.pdf
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halpin_Covered_Bridge
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lattice_truss_bridge
https://scfindingaids.uvm.edu/agents/people/584
Note: this link may require a subscription to Newspapers.com
https://newspapers.com/image/535949447
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