Karen Wolfe did something this week that few others have done in the last 80 years.

She walked Somerfield’s Main Street and its 206-year-old Great Crossings Bridge, landmarks that normally sit about 50 feet underwater at Youghiogheny River Lake in southwest Somerset County.

“We had to come see this,” said Wolfe, who drove to the lake with her family from her New Stanton area home. “It’s incredible. We’ve been coming here by boat for probably 15 years, and we’ve never seen it like this.

The bridge, an 1818 structure of cut sandstone, once carried Route 40 over the Yough River between Somerset and Fayette counties. Just upstream of the modern version of the highway and its much taller bridge, the Grands Passages span periodically emerges from the depths when dry weather causes low water levels in the artificial lake.

Clear skies and mild temperatures in the 70s Thursday afternoon brought a steady stream of visitors to the Somerfield Recreation Area of ​​the Lake on the Somerset County side of the lake. They strolled along the part of the historic bridge that juts out into the body of water, some retaining their experience with photos and videos.

Jack Kemp and his wife, Gail, drove east from their home in Hopwood, on the outskirts of Uniontown, to explore the bridge.

“Before, you only saw the top part of it,” he said. “Now you can see everything.

“We’ve never walked here before. We just saw him cross the (modern) bridge. I’ve never seen the water this low.

“The drought is the reason,” said Andrew Byrne, a public affairs specialist with the Army Corps of Engineers.

The Army Corps oversees the 6-mile-long lake and the dam near Confluence that created it in 1943 as part of a federal flood control program.

Rainfall has been scant across the region, with much of Somerset, Fayette and Westmoreland counties experiencing “severe drought” conditions, according to the National Integrated Drought Information System.

To the west, Connellsville is about 3 inches below normal precipitation total for the year to date, while Pittsburgh is more than 2 inches below normal from September to late October, according to Shannon Hefferan, a meteorologist at the Pittsburgh office of the National Weather Service. .

The normal water elevation of Yough Lake in summer is 1,439 feet above sea level. The level was at 1,378 feet on October 18 and had fallen an additional 4 feet by Friday.

The top of the bridge becomes visible when the lake level is at 1,392 feet, and the bridge deck is exposed at 1,384 feet, according to Byrne.

Construction of Yough Dam flooded the Great Crossings Bridge, the town of Somerfield in Somerset County, and other small communities in either of the two affected counties.

Wolfe was able to recognize under a layer of dried mud the foundations of some buildings in Somerfield, bordered by the remains of a paved sidewalk strewn with rotten stumps.

“I saw an old picture of that,” she said of the city’s main thoroughfare. “There were buildings all along this sidewalk.

“It was a tree-lined street. It’s so cool.

Beyond the resurfaced remains of the city, Wolfe pointed out more modern landmarks that have taken on a new look: a Somerset County boat ramp and Fayette County boat docks, all left dry.

Compared to other structures in Somerfield, the Great Crossings Bridge impressed visitors with its intact character.

“For the buildings, they mainly did everything in demonstration. But they didn’t demonstrate the bridge,” said visitor Warren Keen. “They could have demonstrated the bridge and reused the stone elsewhere, but they didn’t.”

Keen is a history buff and is particularly interested in Route 40, America’s first federally funded highway, built between 1811 and 1834. It is also known as the National Pike.

He made the three-hour trip from his home east of Frederick, Md., to see the Great Crossings Bridge on Monday.

When he returned Thursday, he said, “It’s pretty cool to see how it looks.” The water has dropped a little further.

“I love stone arch bridges.”

Scottdale resident Ryan Brooks remembers boating with his neighbors on Yough Lake as a child, but his visit this week marked the first time he saw the Great Crossings Exposed Bridge in person.

“I have friends in the area who said I should take a look,” he said. “I don’t know if it’s a once in a lifetime thing, but it’s a once in a while thing.

“They don’t build them like that anymore,” he said. “It’s beautiful with the old cut stone.”

“How things can hold up underwater like that is just crazy,” Jack Kemp said.

Mel Houseman, who lives downstream along the Yough River in the Jacobs Creek community in Westmoreland County, took a road trip on his motorcycle to see the exposed bridge. He commented on the positive and negative effects of low water levels.

There is less risk of the river overflowing and damaging his house, he said, noting: “Where I am, the water is very low, maybe knee-deep. »

But Houseman also acknowledged the economic shock to area businesses resulting from the lake’s depleted water resources and recreational opportunities.

“This must be devastating for these people,” he said. “You have the (boat) docks right on the shore. It’s expensive. »

Among those affected by the dry conditions are Tom and Carol Trent, who split their time between their Greensburg home and the Great Crossings Inn they own overlooking the Somerset County boat ramp.

For the first time this year, they offered several Airbnb accommodations, sought after by tourists as well as those visiting local relatives. But the drought caused them to close their operations earlier than expected.

“We closed it Labor Day weekend, when we weren’t going to close it until probably this weekend,” Carol Trent said Thursday. “Everyone’s water wells were drying up and we were worried we might have a water problem. »

“Financially, it really hurt not to open the inn,” Tom Trent said. “But (we) couldn’t risk having to drill a new well.”

The low lake level allowed the couple to have the unusual experience of kayaking under one of the stone arches of the Great Crossing Bridge. But, as with many other visitors to the lake, this has curtailed some of their other water activities.

The Trents normally remove their powerboat from the nearby lake marina in mid-September, but they did so a month early this year.

Compared to this season, the bridge was not as exposed during the low water levels the Trents observed in 2019, when they purchased the inn. But they saw family photos showing the water level in 1998 was lower than it is today.

When the water level gets too low, Tom Trent pointed out, “You can’t safely push your trailer deep enough to get your boat out.

“The whole area died a month early, which has a very significant impact on all businesses.”

“It definitely hurt the boating industry,” Carol Trent said.

But as boating activity on the lake diminished, the flow of tourists coming to admire the bridge increased. The change in lake level didn’t bother fishermen, who found new spots to try on the exposed deck of the bridge.

“It’s a huge draw,” Tom Trent said. “Everyone comes to see him. On weekends, there are almost as many people as in summer, during the nautical season.

Carol said: “We should have sold T-shirts. »