BRIDGEPORT — Bridgeport fifth-graders played Victorian era games, sat in classic cars and took a tour at the historic Blaine Hill “S” Bridge.

The middle-schoolers took a trip to the unique structure to learn more about its history Friday morning.

Principal Anne Haverty Lawson said the bridge is very pertinent to the community where the school is located, and the students were there to learn about the historical value of the bridge. This is the third year students from the school have visited the span.

“This is how our people got from east to west, from one side of the state to the other side of the state,” she said. “I mean, (U.S.) 40 goes a very, very long way. So it’s just the history and gaining understanding of what has taken place in the county in which they live.”

Lawson said the students have fun being outside, and the trip is a time to enjoy fall and gain an understanding of travel by horse and buggy or in cars with bad brakes that once traveled on the bridge.

Lawson said students in the past have had great reactions to the trip and loved it.

According to the Federal Highway Administration, the bridge was constructed as part of the National Road project, the first road funded by the federal government. Its 6.3 % gradient from east to west made travel easier for early pioneers to the West, having to climb the 500-foot hill out of the valley as well as across a tributary of the Ohio River.

In 1994, the bridge was closed to traffic and, in 2000, the Ohio Department of Transportation authorized reconstruction of the collapsing western end of the bridge. In 1999, the bridge was saved from demolition when the Blaine Bridge Community Preservation Project was formed.

Considered one of the most historically and architecturally significant structures in the state, the bridge was designated as Ohio’s Official Bicentennial Bridge to commemorate Ohio’s 200 years of statehood celebrated in 2003.

On Friday, Great Western Schoolhouse Schoolmarm Anne Rattine was there to put on games for students to play that people played in the late 1800s and early 1900s. One was the clothespin drop game, where students dropped clothespins in three different sized bottles. Another game called Graces consisted of two partners separated by a short distance throwing and catching a hoop with a wand.

Rattine said it was not seemly for girls to perspire during the Victorian age, so this game allowed girls to participate without breaking a sweat.

Rattine said she thinks it’s a really good history lesson for the middle school students because the bridge is “within shouting distance” of their school, jut a few miles to its west.

Students were also able to ride in wagons led by horses, provided by Richard and Patty Gummere and Bruce Vannest. The students did a craft where they took a leaf and used wax paper and crayons to create a stained glass window art project to hang up in the middle school. Students were able to see antique cars provided by Bruce and Beverly Riddle and Mike and Gladys Horsky.

Former Belmont County commissioner and retired Bridgeport school teacher Gordie Longshaw said the middle-schoolers got to learn more about their hometown by visiting the bridge.

The bridge once was a vital part of Ohio’s transportation network, he said, and the cars would come down the steep Blaine Hill to the bridge and burn up their brakes. His uncle, who had a garage near the bridge, would fix the brakes and get people back on their way. He also said drivers sometimes could not make it up the steep hill because the gas tank was on the back of their car, so they backed up the hill instead.

“They can know more about history in Belmont County,” Longshaw said. “Also, National Road was a vital part of what made this be an industrial part of the country, coal and steel mills, everything you needed, transportation. And this was one of the best, especially in the Northwest Territory.”

According to the historical marker at the site, “the first Blaine Hill Bridge was constructed in 1828 as part of the National Road, the nation’s first federally funded highway. This three-arch S-shaped structure, 345 feet in length, spans Wheeling Creek (a tributary of the Ohio River) and is the longest original ‘S’ bridge in existence on the old National Road.”

Kim Mokros from Pease Township Parks and Recreation said it’s important for the students to take this trip to learn about history, so history doesn’t repeat itself.

The students did a PowerPoint project prior to visiting the bridge to learn about some of its history.

The Belmont County Tourism Council, Ohio National Road Association, Pease Township Parks and Recreation and Bridgeport Middle School put this field trip together so students could learn about the oldest sandstone bridge in Ohio. Parks and recreation maintains the bridge all year round. Cammie Hanson from Bridgeport Public Library assisted with planning and the craft project as well. Ohio Department of Transportation workers were present, as they clean areas in Blaine and the bridge. Property Maintenance System Inc. volunteered to prepare the bridge for the field trip, as parks and recreation contracts it to maintain the bridge.

Students were also treated to lunch with Chick-Fil-A cookies, water provided by Panhandle Cleaning and Restoration and apples from Ebbert Farm Market for apples.

“Just learning about history in our own area,” Mokros said. “I do run into people who said, after their kids were here, they didn’t even know this was here. Just to know the history of how things developed is so important for them to learn.”