joanne.poindexter@roanoke.com 981-3232

Joyce Newcomb's evening fitness trek through Buchanan is back on track.

For a couple of months while the town's historic footbridge was barricaded because of damage, Newcomb and her walking buddy, Jackie Dennis, tackled the vehicular bridge on U.S. 11 to cross the James River during their four-mile evening walk.

Mayor Rex Kelly's daily trips from home to town hall are shorter because the pedestrian bridge, one of Buchanan's most popular tourist attractions, has reopened.

Part of the bridge, a nationally recognized historic landmark, was closed after heavy November winds loosened floor planks. The bridge is a shortcut for many town residents and a link between commercial and residential Buchanan.

Bridge regulars continued to use it until February, when the Virginia Department of Transportation fully barricaded the span on both sides of the river.

In early March, a VDOT bridge crew replaced a few floor beams and some timber railing. Workers also tightened a lateral cable that braces the bridge against the wind. The bridge reopened about March 11, said Bill Manning, a VDOT assistant resident engineer.

Kelly had bemoaned the bridge's closing during the Botetourt County Board of Supervisors' February meeting.

Taking it all in stride, he now jokes that VDOT quickly repaired the swinging bridge after a March 2 story in The Roanoke Times.

The swinging motion of the bridge doesn't bother Kelly, who walks it, using his white-tip cane, without holding the rails.

For Newcomb, having the bridge reopened, "just does my heart good."

The bridge was repaired while Newcomb was on vacation. When she returned home March 14, one of the first things she did was cross the span.

While Newcomb especially enjoys the view of Buchanan and the mountains from the bridge - she sometimes stops in the middle and just stares - her real draw to the span "is just the feeling it gives you as you walk across."

Newcomb leads others who are tempted to walk the 366-foot-long bridge but are afraid of the motion. She said that she's amazed at the number of visitors who stop in town just to walk across the bridge.

"It's a town attraction. I'm so appreciative that the state jumped up and fixed it. I don't know that the town would have finances to keep it maintained," Newcomb said.

The Buchanan bridge is the only suspension bridge across the James. It started as a wooden, covered toll bridge in 1851.

Over the years, it has been damaged by fire during the Civil War and by several floods, and it has been rebuilt and repaired several times. It was taken into the state transportation secondary road system in 1946 after getting a reprieve.

The bridge almost was dismantled in the late 1930s, when the concrete bridge that now carries vehicular traffic across the river was built.

Harry Fulwiler, who tried to stop construction of the new bridge, won the reprieve.

Under an April 1937 court agreement, the state Highway Department, now VDOT, was allowed to build the new bridge for vehicular traffic, but it also had to erect a new suspension bridge on the same piers of the old bridge and turn the south end to meet with a walkway for the new vehicular bridge.

The town maintained the bridge until it was taken into the state's system.

Under the court agreement, both the highway department and the town of Buchanan agreed to "forever after maintain, repair, restore and replace the aforesaid suspension foot bridge, whether the same be destroyed by wind, fire, flood, act of God, military forces, or by any cause, and will forever after keep open the aforesaid suspension bridge in good condition as an integral part of the street system of the Incorporated Town of Buchanan, Virginia, for the use of the general public."

If the bridge wasn't maintained, the town and/or the highway department would have to pay Fulwiler, his estate or heirs $5,000. A similar fine would apply if steps to replace the bridge were not started within 30 after it was destroyed or removed and the Fulwiler estate or heirs gave written notification.

VDOT officials say the agreement still is valid.