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The Garfield Covered Bridge was a timber King-truss, interstate, covered bridge in Garfield, Vermont – once a booming hamlet near Hyde Park. The bridge crossed the Green River at more than 1,000 feet above sea level, crossing over a tumbling brook and a succession of waterfalls.

History
It was built in 1870, but removed in the early 1972 by a developer, who used the trusses to build, in 1973, a covered bridge in Brownsville, Vermont, named the Smith Bridge.

History
The Garfield Bridge was abandoned in 1965 when the Town of Hyde Park, Vermont bypassed it with a culvert. J.P. Rich, president of a local surveying firm, purchased it in 1971 to ensure it would be preserved. The namesake of the bridge was that of a small unincorporated community Garfield, near Hyde Park.


 * Where did the Garfield Covered Bridge Go?


 * Now it is the Smith Bridge at Brownsville, VT. The trusses belonged to the Garfield Bridge (45-08-05) built in 1870 over the Green River in Hyde Park, Vt. Thurston Twigg-Smith Jr., of ASA Properties Vermont, Inc., a real estate development company based in Hawaii, bought the Garfield Bridge to provide access to two of the corporation’s properties. The trusses were taken down, cut in half, and trucked to the building sites; one span in Pomfret (45-14-18), the other in Brownsville. The developer referred to them as the Pomfret Bridge and the Ascutney Bridge. The two forty-foot “Smith” bridges were assembled in 1973 by the Cummings Construction Company.

The Garfield Bridge was abandoned in 1965 when the Town of Hyde Park bypassed it with a culvert. James Phillip Rich (1934–1989), of Elmore, Vermont, president of a local surveying firm, purchased it in 1971 to ensure it would be preserved.

The Smith Bridge in Brownsville stood over Mill Brook in the valley below Mount Ascutney where it crossed Mill Brook south of Vermont Route 44 and two miles west of Brownsville. It was similar in appearance to the half in Pomfret differing in that large rectangular pieces of the portals were cut out and the upper bracing system changed to increase passage height. This action undoubtedly contributed to the bridge's collapse.


 * In 1948, the Morrisville Water and Light Department, in cooperation with another utility company, built a dam across the Green River to create a large reservoir for the department's two generating plants on the Lamoille River into which the Green River flows. To accomidate the construction vehicles needed for the project, Hyde Park selectmen agreed, in 1946, to rebuild the bridge.


 * see this

Garfield community

 * 1890: Charles B. Swift (born September 1865 New Jersey), appointed postmaster at Garfield, Lamoille, Vermont