Photo taken by: Jennifer Compston-Straw
The former Bellaire Bridge still stands over the Ohio River between Bellaire and Pinewood. Shown here is an extension of the village of Bellaire and parts of it from the west side of the Ohio River.
BELLAIRE – The now closed Bellaire Bridge was a well-used link between Pinewood, West Virginia, and Bellaire, Ohio, and reminds residents on both sides of the Ohio River of the assets they lost.
As someone who used the bridge frequently during the height of his travels to West Virginia, Bellaire resident Mike Ducey “certainly” wishes the bridge was operational today.
“I used that bridge all the time to go to West Virginia for recreation,” Ducey said. “Now you have to go to Shadyside or further north if you want to come to Moundsville.”
Kind to the bridge's current state of rust, Ducey considered it “certainly one-of-a-kind.” He uses the landmark as a place for his relatives to bug him when they come to town.
“Every time we have relatives from out of town, we bring them there to see it and ask them: Have you ever seen a bridge without a ramp?” he mused. “It's a bridge to nowhere.”
The bridge was closed to traffic in 1991, before Belmont County Commissioner and Bellaire resident Josh Meyer got his driver's license. All his memories of crossing the bridge go back to his days as a “young man in the early '90s.”
“I grew up in Belleville, so we would be here every now and then because Bellaire was a commuting town at one time with a lot of stores and such,” Meyer recalls. “I can vaguely remember crossing that bridge on several occasions when they had a ticket booth.”
Dennis Delbert, owner of Runner's Connection in Bellaire, remembers using the bridge for cross-country practices in the 1990s. For him, the best part of running on the hull was looking down through the net and feeling as if he was above water.
“It was really cool if you were good at heights,” Delbert said. “You run through it, and all you can see is the water underneath.”
Delbert is frustrated that his store is separated from West Virginia customers without easy connection to the bridge. After seeing the structure standing on the Ohio River for 30 years without use, he said he wouldn't miss looking at the rusty metal structure from his shop window.
“Luckily it blends in with the brown on the hillside,” he joked. “The only bad thing about removing it is the fact that it would have been great for both cities if we could actually use it.”
Chad Farmer, co-owner of Bellaire's Community Coffee and Tea, remembers teenage incidents involving sneaking onto the closed bridge. As a lifelong resident of Bellaire, Farmer is saddened by the bridge's deterioration from operational condition to rust and collapse.
“It is disturbing to see such a landmark here slowly crumbling and rusting,” he described. “There's not a lot of paint left on it, so it's sad to see it die a slow death.”
As for whether he would sneak back onto the bridge for old times' sake, Farmer joked that he couldn't “broadcast that information.”
Across the river in Pinewood, residents have many memories of the bridge but also fear the damage the structure could cause in the future.
Undo customers Peggy Rawlings and Rodney Board remember saving dimes as children to pay tolls to cross the bridge.
“Sometimes, I had to give the toll collector a dime,” Rawlings recalled. “I've always felt sorry for the collectors and how cool it is to have them in that little box.”
Board noted that crossing the bridge by car was a unique experience because of the bridge's grille and the smaller width of the tires at that time.
“You'll feel the car shake,” Burd recalls. “When you were crossing on a motorcycle, oh my God, you had to keep your feet down.”
Despite their fond memories of the bridge, they both see no future for the structure.
“I think maybe there's no need for him now because he clearly hasn't been rehabilitated,” Rawlings lamented. “With the other bridges around us, it's just another remnant of Wheeling's past.”
Burd agreed, adding that the bridge “needs to be torn down before something big happens.”
“Parts of the roof have blown off, and it needs to be scrapped before anyone is hurt,” Burd said. “It had been hit by sandals before and the broken parts came apart.”
As someone who works under the bridge every day, Undo employee Sherry Wojcik is concerned that a piece might fall into the restaurant. For her, “the only solution at this stage” is to demolish the bridge.
“It should have been fixed a long time ago,” she added. “It was nice to keep it going, but it was too long.
Patrick Wessels, an Advance Auto Parts employee and longtime Pinewood resident, called the structure an “eyesore.” Ships had only crossed the bridge a few times when she was a child, which made her frustrated when she saw the structure deteriorating further each year.
Despite their deteriorating condition, the ships admitted that they had sneaked onto the bridge. He described the experience as “superficial.”
He added: “Some parts look like they're going to fall, and some parts look as strong as a bull.” “I guess I would call it inconsistent.”
The ship hopes that the bridge will be repaired for the convenience of the residents of Pinewood. The extra 15 minutes added to a trip to Bellaire without the bridge often prevents him from traveling across the river.
“It would be more convenient to just shoot across this bridge,” Wessels explained. “What they should do is what they do with the suspension bridge, widen it and renovate it so you can have more than just one lane on it.”
