By the 1890’s, New Milford’s old wooden bridges had outlived their usefulness because of their age, increasing traffic, and the coming of the horseless carriage. After a sturdy and ornate iron bridge built by the Berlin Iron Bridge Company replaced the covered wooden bridge at Boardman’s crossing in 1888 and pleased town officials with its performance and appearance, Granville M. Breinig, president of the Bridgeport Wood Finishing Company, approached the town selectmen in early 1895 with a proposal. Because his company used the public road connected with the old wooden bridge and bridge restrictions severely affected profits, he offered to exchange the public road for a new road to be built on company land eight rods to the south and given to the town at no cost, and his company would also donate $1000 toward a new iron bridge. The proposal was unanimously accepted at a town meeting on February 23, 1895, and Falls Bridge was completed that same year at a cost of $7,938. Originally known as Falls Bridge or Bridge at Great Falls, it is 19 feet wide, 173 feet long, and 100 feet above the gorge and rapids. It is a lenticular truss design built by Berlin Iron Bridge Co. of Berlin, Connecticut; more than 1000 bridges were built by the company before 1900, and this is one of four of its design still remaining in Connecticut. It received recognition through the National Register of Historic Places in 1976, a Historic Highway Bridge designation by the Connecticut Department of Transportation, and the Historic American Engineering Record in the Library of Congress.

Photo: Michael Herrick

Photo: Michael Herrick

Photo: Michael Herrick

Photo: Michael Herrick