A Bridge of Firsts – The building of the Wiscasset bridge

Revisit the building of Davey Bridge linking Wiscasset to Davis Island, Edgecomb in photographs taken by journalist Phil Di Vece of Wiscasset. Costing over $8.5 million to build over a two-year period from 1981 to 1883, it was the first bridge of its kind constructed in Northern New England. It's made up of 318 steel-reinforced concrete segments each weighing 40 tons held together by steel cables running within it post-tensioned to 846,000 pounds. Following its completion it was dedicated by Governor Joseph Brennan on Sept. 28. 1986 to Lincoln County Sheriff’s Detective Sergeant Donald E. Davey who gave his life in the line of duty on June 30, 1984.

 Local author and reporter Phil Di Vece will present the information and photographs that he had gathered as a reporter during that period of construction of the Davey Bridge.  His talk and pictures will show the progress of the project as well as insights to the impact to the community. This Friends’ of the Wiscasset Public Library program will be on Wednesday October 25 at 5:00 in the Fiction Room of the Library

 Phil Di Vece earned a B.A. in Journalism studies at Colorado State University and a M.A. in Journalism at the University of South Florida. From 1980 to 1995 he owned and published a weekly newspaper, The Wiscasset Times, based in Wiscasset, where he continues to live and write. He is a former selectman for the town of Wiscasset, and is a Trustee of the Wiscasset Water District.

Mr Di Vece has a knack for colorful storytelling. His books “Wiscasset and Its Times” and “More Wiscasset and It’s Times" take the reader on journeys through the storied past of Lincoln County’s Shire Town.