The stone arches over Shavers Creek at Petersburg, built in 1889 and still carrying trains

At the south end of Petersburg, where Shavers Creek meets the Juniata, a three arch bridge of cut stone, 134 feet long, carries the railroad's two tracks over the creek. Its faces are cut, coursed, unfinished stone with semicircular arches, and the undersides of the arches were built with step like ribbing for support. The National Register nomination, prepared in September 1989, also lists it under the name Conrail Bridge over Shavers Creek, and the form names the Pennsylvania Railroad as its builder.

Conrail's records put its construction in 1889. The nomination says a date like that often means a bridge rebuilt after the flood of 1889, but that no evidence was found that this was the case here. The nomination says its text was taken from an unpublished report Nancy Shedd prepared in 1988 for the Historic American Engineering Record. Shedd's inventory of the county's engineering and industrial sites, printed in 1991, puts it more strongly, saying the bridge most likely replaced one lost or damaged in the flood. What the records do show is six stone arch railroad bridges built in the county between 1886 and 1889, which the nomination reads as a program by the Pennsylvania Railroad to replace its first generation of iron bridges with heavier masonry.

The most recent major repairs before the form was written, again by Conrail's records, came in 1967, which the nomination says may be when a series of triangular metal brackets was added along the south face to support curbing at the edge of the right of way. Metal safety railings on both sides of the deck were a recent addition in 1989. The nomination says it is the only stone arch railroad bridge still in use in the county whose face has not been covered with concrete supports.

It was nominated under Criteria A and C, transportation and engineering, with a period of significance from 1889 to 1939. The nomination calls it a good example of a nineteenth century multiple span stone arch bridge and of the second phase of bridge building on the Pennsylvania Railroad's right of way. The listed property is a rectangle 134 feet by about 60 feet whose corners are the outside corners of the wing walls, taking in the bridge and nothing else. Two pictures of it are cited: an early photograph on page 30 of Petersburg and Shavers Creek Valley, published by the Petersburg Bicentennial Committee in 1976, and a photograph of the bridge under construction in the John Nelson Thompson collection at the Huntingdon County Historical Society.

Rather, available records show six stone-arch railroad bridges constructed in the county between 1886 and 1889, suggesting that the PRR was engaged in a program of replacing its first-generation iron bridges with heavier masonry structures.National Register of Historic Places nomination, Pennsylvania Railroad Bridge over Shavers Creek (reference 90000395), Pennsylvania Railroad Bridge over Shavers Creek, section 8, p5 · character 5,360 of the scanned text

Checked 2026-09-05 · National Register of Historic Places nomination, read in full

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