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Paddock Bridge.
Digital picture by Kenyon F. Karl on September 30, 2000.
The stone dust surface of the trail ends at the northwest intersection of Route 11 and Paddock Road, at which point the trail becomes an on-road bike route that crosses the Paddock Bridge and continues down the lightly used Paddock Road on the north side of the river. Bicyclist must be careful of the steel trolley rails in one lane of the bridge. But even more remarkable is the presence of a couple of the fittings on the overhead crossbeams of the bridge that once held the copper trolley wire in place. Note that the trolley line ran alongside the south edge of the pavement of Paddock Road, in an area that is now covered with grass and brush.
The Schoolhouse & Covered Bridge are about an eighth-mile east of the Paddock Bridge via Perley Gordon Road, a lightly used residential street that runs down the south bank of the river to the Baltimore Covered Bridge. Note that wheelchair users may have to detour around the covered bridge on the breakdown lane of Route 11.
Baltimore Covered Bridge adjacent to the Eureka
School House.
Digital picture by Kenyon F. Karl on September 30, 2000.
Eureka School House.
Digital picture by Kenyon F. Karl on September 30, 2000.
The trail shares
the lightly used Paddock Bridge as well as Paddock Road east of the bridge!
The Eureka School House is open Daily except Tuesday from 10 am to 4
pm from May to October as a staffed historic site and Tourist Information
Center by the Springfield
Chamber of Commerce. A key to the toilet (a well hidden building just west of the
Baltimore Covered Bridge) is available at the Schoolhouse whenever it is open.
The schoolhouse is not
wheelchair accessible, but its staff should be willing to leave
the schoolhouse to provide information to disabled visitors .
The Baltimore Covered Bridge, the exterior of the Eureka School
House, an information kisok, a public telephone, and a picnic table
are available at all times. Note that the covered bridge will serve as a trail
shelter during inclement weather.
