The famed covered bridge — the first structure built in Coral Springs — is now open to cars again.
The 1964 bridge off Wiles Road was originally the entrance to the city. It was built by Founding Father James Hunt, who wanted both a bridge to carry traffic over a canal in The Hills subdivision, as well as a landmark.
It had been shut down since September after a driver heading northbound on Northwest 95th Avenue thought he could fit under the bridge. After his 12-foot-high truck collided with the 10-foot tall bridge, he kept going, breaking off wood, according to a police report.
The bridge’s tresses, the rafters on both ends, beams, and “lots of wood” were damaged,” according to Kelli Matonak, the city’s historian. The bridge needed repair: “It’s the last piece of our original history, the only place you can go and it’s the same as it was in 1964.”
The box truck’s driver, perhaps ironically, was toting antique furniture from a company called Olde Good Things, an architectural antique dealer.
The city is still seeking the $119,327.44 in repairs from the driver’s insurance company, Matonak said.
It’s still the only covered bridge in Florida that’s in the public right-of-way, and links Wiles Road to Northwest 95th Avenue.
Hunt at the time had seen a chewing tobacco sign on a covered bridge and thought it was old-fashioned and Southern. He called the chairman of the American Snuff Company in Atlanta and asked him to put a tobacco sign on Coral Springs’ new covered bridge. “They supervised and put the murals up and painted them for no cost,” she said.
Today, “it’s a site people will take prom photos and portraits,” Matonak said. “It’s a treasure.”
lhuriash@sunsentinel.com, 954-572-2008 or Twitter @LisaHuriash