Complicated by the work of vandals and by a rash of illness in the Warren County Road Department, repairs to the historic Old Richardsville Road bridge are complete and ready for a longtime resident of the area to open the latest chapter in the 420-foot-long bridge’s lengthy history.

Closed in March 2018 after a Kentucky Transportation Cabinet inspection found structural deficiencies, the bridge that dates to 1889 was nearly ready to reopen last month when vandals painted graffiti on it, causing another delay.

Warren County Public Works Director Josh Moore said at Monday’s Warren Fiscal Court meeting that road department staff removed the graffiti and that he is working to schedule a ribbon-cutting for the bridge that is on the National Register of Historic Places.

He is planning to have a 99-year-old resident of the area to be the first to drive across it.

At a time when nearly half the road department staff was out because of a rash of COVID-19 infections, Moore said workers spent about five hours pressure washing and painting over graffiti that included some obscenities and some references to fraternities or sororities at Western Kentucky University.

“It has been a challenging time,” Moore said. “We also had to clean up broken plates on the bridge and paint over the steel.”

Moore said he is also working on installing lights on the bridge and possibly security cameras later on as a way of preventing further vandalism.

The road department’s work satisfies Gray Caudill, a resident of the Old Richardsville Road area who is anxious to have the bridge open and to have near-centenarian Hayward Minton inaugurate it.

“It looks like they got it (the graffiti) off pretty good,” Caudill said. “It’s unfortunate that people do that sort of thing.”

Caudill said he’s ready to have a ribbon-cutting for this latest chapter in the life of a single-lane bridge that was declared unsafe in the 1980s and repaired at the time at the expense of Camping World founder David Garvin.

No one, Caudill said, is better suited than Minton to take the first trip across the bridge.

“He has lived out here since the 1940s,” Caudill said. “He has told me about driving mules across that bridge.”

“I’m the oldest one in the neighborhood,” said Minton, who still lives along Old Richardsville Road on property near the Barren River that the bridge spans. “I’ve been living on this road for 75 years. I’ve crossed that bridge more than anybody.”

Thanks to a $293,523 restoration job done by Lexington’s Intech Contracting, he will soon be able to cross it again.

Moore said the repairs included installation of a metal barrier limiting the height of vehicles crossing the bridge as a way of enforcing the 3-ton weight limit. Signs notifying drivers of the weight limit are also in place.

Fifth District Magistrate Mark Young, who represents the Old Richardsville Road area, said the barriers and signs are needed to maintain the integrity of a bridge that became over the years a tourist draw because of ghostly legends associated with it.

“We have made provisions to keep heavy equipment off the bridge,” Young said. “I hope that will make it last longer.”

The county received $312,000 in KYTC funding to repair the bridge, so Moore said the restoration and inclusion of lights and cameras should come in under budget.

In other action at Monday’s fiscal court meeting, the magistrates approved Sheriff Brett Hightower’s request to purchase four Ford Interceptor vehicles through the Enterprise Fleet Management program at a total cost (including outfitting and striping) of $167,548.80.

Also approved was a $14,965 expenditure to Toadvine Enterprises for new scoreboards at Griffin and Ed Spear parks.

– Follow business reporter Don Sergent on Twitter @BGDNbusiness or visit bgdailynews.com.