Bridgeton covered bridge

Saturday
We left fairly early this morning for Parke County in Western Indiana, where we are spending the weekend to celebrate my birthday. Parke County calls itself the "covered bridge capital of the world" as it has 32 covered bridges, supposedly more than any other county in the country. They have a Covered Bridge Festival each year, which was last weekend, but for one thing, Laura was home on Fall break last weekend, and in any case it would have been really crowded, and I thought it would be nicer to have it more to ourselves. The bridges of Parke County were built between 1856 and 1920. The bridges were roofed and sided for purely practical reasons. Wood was the easiest and most abundant resource available, but because they were vulnerable to rot, they were covered for protection. Often, they were the largest covered structures in a community, hence they were also used for revival meetings, weddings and other community functions. Once the U.S. had around 10,000 wooden bridges of this type, today, less than 900 remain, primarily due to arson, flooding, natural deterioration and the ravages of the Civil War. Parke County has five different routes laid out and marked for you to follow. We covered the two southernmost ones today - the black and red routes, which included the bridge shown here - the Bridgeton covered bridge. Unfortunately, the original was burned down in an arson fire in 2005. so this is a recent reconstruction (2006). The bridge is 245 ft long and crosses Big Raccoon Creek. The original was built in 1868, and was by-passed in 1967 - you can just see the road bridge underneath the covered bridge. If you're interested in seeing some pictures from the re-building, you can see here. The mill on the far side was established in 1823, and rebuilt in 1870 and they claim to be the oldest continuously operating mill west of the Allegheny Mountains. After we had completed the red and black routes it was time to head for our Bed and Breakfast which was actually out of Parke County, further north and east - in Crawfordsville. I found it on the internet and it looked really nice and had great reviews, and we certainly weren't disappointed.

One year ago: Birthday gift