The Dover Covered Bridge in Mason County is the oldest wooden covered bridge in Kentucky. Several local residents are working to get the funding to restore the bridge.
A local effort to restore the Dover Covered Bridge is underway in Mason County.
During a recent Mason County Fiscal Court meeting, Ann Porter, with the Mason County Extension Homemakers, Lori Ulrich, chair of the Buffalo Trace Wood Covered Bridge Authority and Maysville-Mason County Tourism Director Katelyn Bailey spoke to the commissioners about the state of the covered bridge.
According to Porter, the Dover Covered Bridge is the oldest remaining wooden covered bridge in the state of Kentucky.
“It needs help,” she said. “I feel like, because of the Fleming County bridges being fixed, this is the time for us to hit for money. We need to preserve this for tourism. When you have something like this, you need to show this off. I’m embarrassed to, when I do tours, to take them to the Dover bridge. You can barely see it, much less get close enough to take pictures.”
Porter said the Mason County Homemakers are involved in the effort to repair the bridge. They are working on petitions and letters to garner interest for the repairs.
“We really, really need to try to save this bridge. I’m a Dover girl. I’ve been around that bridge my entire life and I want to see that it stays,” she said. “I don’t want to see any bridge go. That’s history and our kids will never know what a wooden covered bridge is if we don’t save them. This will help tourism, it will help our whole community. We need to save this bridge.”
Porter presented petitions to the commissioners for people to sign.
“It doesn’t matter if they live somewhere in the state, because this should be a state project,” she said.
Porter said the petitions can be returned to Ulrich or the Cox Building office.
Ulrich said that based on past bridge restorations, the cost of the bridge repair may be anywhere from $1 million to $1.5 million.
“That’s to get Dover back to where it needs to be,” she said. “As Ann said, there is significant interest in the state of Kentucky to rehabilitate these bridges. Obviously, we have Grange City in Fleming County that is getting ready to be restored. There has been discussion on Ringos. It is a budget here in Kentucky, so we need to get our name on the roll and make sure we are considered. We need to band together as a community. It’s going to take the entire community’s support. We’ve already lost one bridge here and we don’t want to lose our last one.”
According to Porter, within the local area, there are only seven covered bridges remaining.
According to Ulrich, the Dover Covered Bridge was stabilized several years ago by Arnold Graton.
“We were told, at that time, that the stabilization would last for a few years,” she said. “But we still want to act as soon as possible to make sure that we don’t lose the last covered bridge we have in Mason County.”
Bailey said there will be a social media campaign pushed out soon.
“We developed a logo for the covered bridges,” she said. “We are going to be doing some letterhead and stickers. We will also have t-shirts. The social media campaign will be started soon. There will be a Facebook page.”
As part of the campaign, the hashtag #savedovercoveredbridge will be used.
According to Bailey, there are about 15 to 20 covered bridge tours each year, which she anticipates will increase when the riverboats start staying in town for a longer time frame next year.
“People love it,” she said. “They spend several hours and take the time to see all seven bridges in our area.”
Mason County Judge-Executive Owen McNeill said the bride is important to Mason County and supports the efforts to save it.
“Mason County has such authentic history and the Dover Wooden Covered Bridge is a prime example. Mason County Fiscal Court is proud to support the initiative underway by petitioning Kentucky to assist with the restoration. At some point, we’ll lose the initiative and the Dover Bridge is deserving given the fact that it’s age and historical significance. Fiscal Court is proud to support this initiative petitioning for funding,” McNeill said. “Mrs Ann Porter and the Mason County Homemakers picked the Bridge as their central campaign this year. Joined by Lori Ulrich, chair of the Buffalo Trace Wooden Bridge Authority and Mrs. Bailey with Tourism, they’ve formed a formidable advocacy team to highlight the plight of Dover’s Bridge.”
