The former Vermont Tissue plant stands in Bennington's Paper Mill Village on the north side of the island on the Walloomsac River. The site, a listed Brownfields property privately owned by AOE, Inc., includes a hydroelectric facility that provided power for the mill for most of the 20th century. An original dam was built at an existing falls in 1784, and the present 85-foot concrete dam was built in 1889. Hydroelectric power existed there by at least 1907, and the works generated power for the mill from 1907 until about 1958. The site includes two turbine bays, a trash rack, tailrace, training wall, and a clean-out gate on the south side of the river across from the main building that needs renovation. A proposed 2010 hydropower project would redevelop the plant in an instantaneous run-of-river mode through renovation of the existing turbine, installation of two Francis turbines in the existing bays, and a future third small generator for test installations. The Francis turbine, designed by American scientist James Francis, uses radial inflow, guide vanes in a spiral casing, a runner with curved channels, and a draft tube to transfer the energy of flowing water to a turbine shaft. Nearby, the Paper Mill Village Covered Bridge was built in 1889 to carry Murphy Road across the Walloomsac River. Originally named for a 1790 paper mill that was one of Vermont's first, the bridge was built by Charles F. Sears, son of Benjamin Sears, who also built the nearby Silk Road Covered Bridge. Also known as the Bennington Falls Covered Bridge, it is an example of Town's lattice truss design, with timber diagonals and no verticals. Covered bridges were primarily built to protect their wooden construction. The bridge received extensive repairs in 1952, was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1973, and after a 1994 inspection found a leaky roof caused by vandalism that led to rot and a $300,000 reconstruction, it was rebuilt in 2000. Ithiel Town patented the lattice truss design in 1820, using diagonally set planks fastened with treenails into a crisscrossing truss secured by top and bottom chords, reducing the need for large timbers and simplifying construction.