Hastings Bridge, Campground Road spanning Worcester, Nashua & Portland Division, Boston & Maine Railroad, Sterling, Worcester County, MA

Significance: Hastings Bridge represents a type of construction that was once common but rarely survives, the wooden truss. It is the oldest extant timber pony truss bridge identified in the Massachusetts statewide bridge survey. Ubiquitous in mid-19th-century transportation systems, wooden trusses were recognized as inferior to iron by the 1890s. The continued use on the Boston and Main Railroad in the 1890s provides vivid material evidence of the company's economic difficulties in the 1890s, near the end of a period of acquisition and growth that made it the dominant railroad in northern New England.
Unprocessed Field note material exists for this structure: N796
Survey number: HAER MA-83
Building/structure dates: 1892 Initial Construction