Finished in mid-December, the new bridge replaces one that had been in the town for nearly a century. According to Lois Wardwell Knight of the Stockholm Historical Society, the town’s former bridge was installed in 1925 after a 1923 flood washed out its predecessor.
The state Department of Transportation awarded the project to CPM Constructors of Freeport last year, with some subcontracting going to Soderberg Construction of Caribou. While the new bridge is safe for travel, Maine DOT’s $1.2 million infrastructure project is not quite complete.
CPM Superintendent Allen Drake says that final, cosmetic touches to the bridge will be added in the early spring of 2017.
As for the need to replace the old bridge, Drake said in an August 2016 interview that the former bridge’s handrail was rotten, opening up the potential for cars to fall into the Little Madawaska River.
Stockholm’s bridge replacement is part of a statewide DOT project to make Maine bridges safer.
