Washington County to invest $238,200 in tourism
The Pine Bank Covered Bridge at Meadowcroft Historic Village will be dismantled and restored with financial assistance from a Washington County tourism grant announced Wednesday.
Mike Meteney, treasurer of the Amateur Astronomers Association of Pittsburgh, demonstrates a telescope trained on the sun Wednesday at Mingo Creek County Park.
FINLEYVILLE – A 144-year-old covered bridge with roots in Greene County will be restored with the support of one of a string of tourism grants announced Wednesday in Washington County.
The bridge, which was relocated from Pine Bank to Meadowcroft Rockshelter and Historic Village in Avella in 1962, will be dismantled, repaired and rebuilt over the winter season, said Dave Scofield, the tourist destination’s director.
“We are now fully funded for that project,” Scofield said Wednesday when Washington County Tourism Promotion Agency announced $238,200 in tourism grants from the money it collects from a hotel tax.
“Tourism: It’s big business,” said Jeff Kotula, president of the agency, which will distribute one of its largest grant totals in its history this year.
“We have to keep investing in these assets,” Kotula said at the Mingo Creek County Park Observatory, which will receive a $5,000 grant to install heating and air conditioning at the planetarium operated by the Amateur Astronomers Association of Pittsburgh.
Meadowcroft was the biggest winner among the groups that were given a total of $124,800 in grants for capital projects. It will receive $37,500 to put toward the more than $250,000 project to restore the Pine Bank Covered Bridge.
The village’s founder, Albert Miller, relocated the bridge from Pine Bank to Avella after learning the state Department of Transportation was planning to demolish it and replace it with a concrete span, Scofield said.
The Pennsylvania Trolley Museum in Chartiers Township will receive $30,000 to offset the cost to restore the Wexford Trolley Station. The Washington County Historical Society was awarded $20,000 to improve accessibility to the historic LeMoyne House in Washington.
The agency also announced $113,400 in mostly smaller grants to help 16 tourism destinations market what they have.
Kotula said the agency decided to invest mostly in outdoor projects in this round of grants.
“People want outdoor stuff, especially millennials,” he said.
The Monongahela Area Historical Society will receive a $2,000 marketing grant after having received one for the same purpose last year.
“It worked to bring people into the county,” society President Susan Bowers said.
Tourism contributes $754.7 million in direct spending in the county a year, and supports 5,957 jobs, the agency said. The agency invested $1.8 million in tourism over the past 14 years.