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The Gudgeonville Bridge crosses Elk Creek just south of Girard in western Erie County. It has possibly the strangest history of any bridge in the world. About 1855 there was a Kentuckian named Obadiah Will, who was delivering a mule named Gudgeon to somebody in Meadville. He stayed
overnight in Girard at the old Martin House. When he left the next morning, he was told to follow the road just west of Elk Creek on through Cranesville, which would take him right to Meadville. A couple of miles south, he got off on another road which took him to Gudgeonville. (At that time, the settlement had no name.) It was only a short distance from the covered bridge which spans Elk Creek to the old Beaver and Erie Canal, which was abandoned in 1871.
Just as Mr. Will and the mule got on the bridge, a couple of canal boats came up from the south. They carried a circus, and one of the boats was a calliope. The man who operated the calliope began to play a tune -- My Old Kentucky Home. Perking up his ears at the weird sound, the animal dug its front hoofs into some planks of the bridge and dropped dead in its tracks. The story was that the mule had been off its feed for several days -- lonesome for Kentucky, perhaps. Mr. Will was given permission to bury the mule on the west bank of the creek, and he marked the spot with a large stone. He hired a painter to go out from Girard and paint the word "Gudgeonville" on each end of the bridge. That's how it got the name. When Dan Rice's circus returned to winter quarters at Girard, Dan was told about the mule and the calliope, and he wrote a sad tale of Gudgeon's demise.
“Let’s go see a covered bridge; it’s not too far away,” my dad says as we sit in our hotel room watching TV. We all agree to take a venture beyond the city to find the Gudgeonville Bridge. A small map of Girard and neighboring cities, with an icon of a covered bridge, is our guide; we set off to find the bridge. After an hour of driving, stopping to ask three different people for directions and going past the same farmhouse a half of a dozen times we somehow manage to find the bridge. It is amazing. We spend time reading the graffiti that gives the bridge so much character. The Elk Creek gurgles as we all lean over the edge to watch the fish that seem to be dancing in the waters. We gaze in awe at the stone river bank that seems to go up forever. After a few pictures and watching a few cars drive over the bridge it is time to leave. Fortunately, it is much easier to drive back to the hotel in Erie.
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