The Historic Harmar Walking Bridge will be closed to all pedestrian crossing in the next two to three weeks.

The bridge will be physically turned, to prevent passage and the entrances currently resting on the east and west sides of the Muskingum River will be blocked.

Chuck Swaney, head of the nonprofit Harmar Bridge Company which has owned the bridge since the 1980s, announced the closure during a special neighborhood meeting called by Main Street West at the Boys and Girls Club in Harmar on Wednesday.

“As soon as reasonably possible it will be closed to pedestrian traffic,” Swaney said to the full room.

Swaney also notified the gathered group that since the end of summer in 2019, HBC has been in talks with Marietta Main Street, the downtown nonprofit focused on economic vitality and promotion for Marietta merchants. Marietta Main Street’s Interim Director Cristie Thomas said those talks have focused on paths forward after closure of the bridge.

Seven members of the Main Street Marietta board were also present for the meeting and identified themselves when called by Thomas.

Thomas outlined that with the partnership between HBC and MMS a fundraising campaign has launched with donations to be routed to the Marietta Community Foundation for an endowment fund.

The privately-owned bridge has long offered liability concerns not only to the nonprofit board of directors and members of the Harmar Bridge Company, but also to city officials as the train bridge’s structural integrity has deteriorated.

The city owns land that the eastern approach to the bridge rests upon. That ownership continues to the city harbor where the River Trail routes beneath.

Before Wednesday’s meeting Harmar residents Casey Heiby, 24, and Ryan Beardsley, 36, said they use the bridge daily and would have to reroute their walk to get groceries and complete other errands.

“We don’t have a car so we use it for everything,” said Beardsley.

Local amateur photographer Patrick West, 29, of Marietta, worried about ramifications of closure as he climbed over the bridge’s western approach to capture a different angle of the bridge with his camera.

“I think it’s such an incredible asset, I’d worry that closing the bridge would just lead to demolition in a couple of years,” he said.

Also before the meeting, City Law Director Paul Bertram noted that past calls for the city to take over ownership of the historic asset were rebuffed because of liability and safety concerns.

“It’s a significant liability, if somebody jumps off of it, if it falls, if it breaks up during a flood, if someone crawls up on it and they fall, there’s too much liability in ownership that the city doesn’t need,” said Bertram. “It’s not structurally sound…The moment you take ownership of that, you take on liability.”

The bridge’s piers were built in 1857, replacing a covered bridge built around 1856 and the iron construction was last replaced after the 1913 flood.

It is reportedly the oldest swinging railroad bridge into the country and the only one of its kind which still turns.

But to restore and convert the wooden railroad ties which are deteriorating through the former train passage, estimates range between $2 million and $4 million.

“We set a goal of about $4 million so that we can comfortably allocate the funds to not only restore it but ensure it’s around for our grandchildren,” explained Thomas.

But fundraising isn’t the only step in the restoration process, she noted.

“We don’t have this all figured out, we don’t have the people in place, but we’ve created a framework,” Thomas continued.

Swaney told the group that the Harmar Bridge Company is set to contribute the first $5,000 towards the new fund, hoping to then work with Main Street and bring on new members to the HBC board.

“Part of the process is rebuilding the Harmar Bridge Company itself. We need a stronger board, a bigger board, a more diverse board,” he said Wednesday. “We need everyone from Devola to Harmar HIll to Norwood and beyond. It can’t be the same five Harmar people in the room.”

Both HBC members Grady Smith and Donna Schob spoke to the work which has continued to fundraise for basic maintenance to the bridge over the years, and were lauded for their undertaking of the “Herculean task” by Fourth Ward Councilman Geoff Schenkel for their efforts over the past 30 years.

“We don’t abandon spaghetti dinners, we don’t abandoned Harmar Days,” explained Schenkel, who has also been privy to recent months’ discussion of the walkway which is a primary river crossing for many low-income residents of Harmar. “But we’re going to have to put more tools in the toolbox to expand our reach not only regionally but nationally.”

The meeting then focused direction on ways both neighborhood residents and the community as a whole may contribute to efforts to save the bridge, including requesting volunteers to serve on the Harmar Bridge Company board, serve in bookkeeping and other administrative tasks of the campaign, provide grant-writing expertise, distribute campaign materials, volunteer for and host local fundraising events and offer in-kind business sponsorships later in the construction phases of the project.

Thomas said a new website has been created to kick off the Save Harmar Bridge campaign, saveharmarbridge.com.

Swaney said he will next appear before Marietta City Council tonight to notify the rest of city administration and legislators of the nonprofit’s Jan. 28 decision. He said he anticipates the bridge to be turned by volunteers in the next two to three weeks.