Landenberg is in New Garden Township in southern Chester County and is about five miles west of Hockessin, Delaware. The village, located on the east branch of the White Clay Creek, grew up around several mills which operated from the early nineteenth century until around the First World War. The mills and the four mill dams were sited to take advantage of the tremendous water power produced by a nearly 60-ft drop in the creek over the course of a mile.
   The mills alternated between producing great wealth for their owners and bankrupting them. The turn of the century, when the bridge was built, was a time of prosperity in the village. Ezra Lund, the owner of the mill, lived a fashionable life with trips to Europe, boarding schools for his children, and in 1910, the purchase of what may have been the first automobile in the village: a seven passenger Chalmer’s Detroit.
   The first bridge in the village was a covered bridge built in 1856. It was replaced by an iron bow-truss bridge in 1871, and it in turn was replaced by the present Pratt pony truss bridge in 1899. The bridge was originally designed for the horse and buggy traffic of its day and was only good for 2.5 tons. By the 1930s increasingly heavy motorized traffic loads required strengthening it to 9 tons.
   In 1988 the bridge was placed on the National Register of Historic Places for its engineering significance, both for its cantilevered sidewalk and for being a Pratt pony truss bridge, an unusual style in southeastern Pennsylvania. Being on the National Register was not sufficient to get it put on PennDOT’s maintenance schedule, however, and the bridge was allowed to deteriorate. By 1999, the bridge was in such bad shape that it was closed altogether.
   PennDOT’s plan to replace the historic truss bridge, which had become one of Landenberg’s defining landmarks, with a non-descript concrete bridge was not well received by the community which strongly wanted the historic bridge maintained. After several years of negotiations, PennDOT agreed to rebuild the bridge in a manner that maintained its historic character in exchange for the township taking ownership and long term maintenance responsibility.
   The community consensus was that the reconstructed bridge should be upgraded to handle school buses and emergency vehicles. Modern emergency vehicles require up to 40 tons of load capacity, and that could not be achieved using only the Pratt pony trusses. To this end it was decided to strengthen the bridge by incorporating modern girder technology. The old bridge was disassembled, heavy modern girders laid down, and then the old bridge repaired and reassembled over and around these girders. The result is a bridge capable of carrying modern traffic loads but still appearing very much as it always has. A disappointing byproduct of this decision, however, was that the bridge was delisted from the National Register. The Pennsylvania Historic Preservation Office ruled that since the bridge’s trusses no longer carried the bulk of the load, the bridge had lost its historic significance under the engineering criteria - even though the defining elements of the bridge were carefully preserved in the reconstruction.
   The Landenberg community invites old car enthusiasts, historic preservation enthusiasts, and historic bridge enthusiasts to join our celebration.
   For more information about the Landenberg bridge visit the New Garden Historical Commission website.

             The Landenberg bridge dated 1934.
Photos and text compliments Dave Hawk, New Garden
Historical Commission