{"id":8114,"date":"2025-08-31T21:18:28","date_gmt":"2025-08-31T21:18:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/princetonillinois.com\/?p=8114"},"modified":"2025-08-31T21:18:28","modified_gmt":"2025-08-31T21:18:28","slug":"repairs-to-princetons-historic-red-covered-bridge-on-the-horizon-after-semi-truck-hit-it-in-2023-wqad-com","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/princetonillinois.com\/?p=8114","title":{"rendered":"Repairs to Princeton's historic Red Covered Bridge on the horizon after semi-truck hit it in 2023 – wqad.com"},"content":{"rendered":"


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PRINCETON, Ill. \u2014 The Red Covered Bridge in Princeton is now closer to getting repaired after nearly two years of being out of commission. 
The bridge, built in 1864, was hit by a semi-truck back in late 2023 leaving significant damage to its roof. But now, the Illinois Department of Transportation has wrapped up the planning stages of restoring the local landmark. 
Paul Wappel said it will take IDOT some time to fully complete the renovations, as they want to keep the historic character of the bridge. 
“It’s listed on the national historic register of historic places, so it takes more coordination with the state historic preservation to ensure the aspects of the bridge are not changed during the repairs,” Wappel said. 
IDOT is now working to estimate the costs of the project. Executive Director for the Bureau County History Center Lex Poppens said it will cost over $1,000,000. 
“One hopes they will build in some structural component that will prevent anything like this from happening in the future,” Poppens said. 
Poppens grew up playing at the bridge and said the local significance should be restored.   
“To restore it in a way that gives it another hundred-year life is appropriate, and I think important to the people of the county,” Poppens said. “It’s not for us, it’s for future generations.” 
Poppens said a public meeting will be held in Princeton on Sunday, Aug. 10 to discuss the logistics of fixing the bridge. 
The Red Covered Bridge joined the National Register of Historic Places back in 1975. 
Illinois has only nine covered bridges<\/a> recorded statewide, with two of them being in Princeton. The oldest of the two is the Red Covered Bridge, which is now 161 years old. 
The 149-foot-long span cost $3,148.57 to construct and was once part of the Peoria-Galena Trail<\/a>, crossing over Big Bureau Creek.<\/p>\n

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To stream News 8 on your phone, you need the News 8 app.Next up in 5Example video title will go here for this videoNext up in 5Example video title will go here for this video PRINCETON, Ill. \u2014 The Red Covered Bridge in Princeton is now closer to getting repaired after nearly two years of being out of commission. The bridge,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8114","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/princetonillinois.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8114","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/princetonillinois.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/princetonillinois.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/princetonillinois.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/princetonillinois.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8114"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/princetonillinois.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8114\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/princetonillinois.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8114"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/princetonillinois.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8114"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/princetonillinois.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8114"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}