Mahomet residents are invited to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the covered bridge at Lake of the Woods on Monday, August 3 from 3 to 5 p.m..
The event will kick-off with a presentation entitled “The Covered Bridge at Lake of the Woods: Everything you wanted to know about it, but were afraid to ask,” at the Newmark Civil Engineering Laboratory, located at 205 N. Matthews Ave. in Urbana.
After the hour long presentation, guests are then invited to the covered bridge at Lake of the Woods Forest Preserve at 5 p.m. for a dedication ceremony.
2015 marks the 50th anniversary of the inauguration of the covered bridge over the Sangamon River. Designed in the 1960’s by German Gurfinkel, a professor in the Department of Civil Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the bridge commissioned by the President of the Forest Preserve at the time, H.I. Gelvin to connect the two sides of Lake of the Woods Forest Preserve.
The bridge was dedicated in honor of Harold Moon, the Lake of the Woods Superintendent, who directed the construction of the bridge on June 20, 1965. The work took 18 months and cost $55,000.
In 1996 the base of the bridge was reinforced to prevent erosion, the deck was replaced and the walkway area was widened to accommodate traffic from the nearby bicycle-pedestrian path.
