Last winter, I made a slow, cold-weather circuit through Putnam and Owen counties in west-central Indiana, following a loose chain of historic bridges after an overnight snowfall. The trip was less about distance than conditions: quiet roads, muted light, and structures that revealed themselves more clearly in winter, when foliage and traffic fell away.
The first stop was the Mill Grove Bridge in Owen County, where fresh snow lay evenly across the metal grid deck and structural members. The crossing carries County Road 100 East over Mill Creek along a route that had been well established by the late nineteenth century, serving churches, schools, and farms between Gosport and Cloverdale. In 1898, the county authorized a fixed steel bridge at the site, specifying a single 125-foot span with a relatively narrow roadway typical of the period. The Rochester Bridge Company secured the contract with a low bid that reflected the growing dominance of prefabricated metal bridges. Around 1910, a riveted pony-truss span was added, likely to address changing hydraulic or roadway conditions. The bridge was rehabilitated in 2005, retaining its original construction and offering a clear example of how rural crossings can be adapted over time rather than rebuilt wholesale.
Just west was the Cataract Falls State Recreation Area, where the historic covered bridge above Mill Creek stood enclosed and still. The present structure dates to December 1876 and was built in the aftermath of a catastrophic flood that destroyed the county’s earlier bridges, including the original crossing at Cataract. The replacement employed the Smith Type A truss, a double-intersection Warren variant developed by the Smith Bridge Company as a competitive alternative to iron construction. The bridge was fabricated off-site in Toledo and assembled at Cataract Falls. Its cut-stone abutments and non-native white pine superstructure spoke to both permanence and experimentation.
Though later modified with windows and repeatedly rehabilitated, the bridge remained structurally representative of a brief moment when timber engineering sought to remain viable against iron. Its listing on the state and national registers underscored its rarity rather than its scale.
I then backtracked to visit the Bell Bridge, a much later expression of standardized highway engineering. Completed in 1941, the riveted Parker through truss replaced an 1886 covered bridge. This truss design reflected Indiana’s adoption of state-designed plans during the prewar period. The 175-foot span, wider deck, and heavier members accommodated increased traffic and vehicle loads, while its form adhered closely to state specifications. Rehabilitations in 1973 and 2015 extended its service life so that it will remain serviceable, possibly to its 100-year anniversary.
From there, snow-covered back roads led south to the Hibbs Ford Bridge over Deer Creek along Devil Backbone Road. Constructed in 1906, the pin-connected Pratt through truss represented county-level bridge building at the turn of the twentieth century, when local commissioners still relied on detailed specifications prepared by county surveyors and competitive bids from regional firms. The Attica Bridge Company supplied the superstructure, while local contractors built the concrete abutments and approaches. Completed within a single construction season, the bridge reflected efficiency and economy rather than innovation. Its rehabilitation in 2006 preserved the original configuration, allowing the bridge to continue serving local traffic with minimal alteration.
Nearby stood the Cooper Bridge, whose history is inseparable from the National Road. Originally erected in 1891 to carry the federally funded highway across Deer Creek, the iron Pratt truss was oriented squarely to the stream while the road approached at sharp angles, a compromise shaped by topography and cost.
As automobile traffic increased and safety standards changed, the state realigned the National Road in the early 1920s and replaced the crossing with a monumental concrete open-spandrel arch. Rather than scrap the iron span, Putnam County purchased it and relocated it to Boesen Road in 1927, reconstructing it on new abutments to replace an earlier covered bridge. The relocated structure retained the geometry and fabric of its original use, quietly preserving a piece of the National Road’s late nineteenth-century infrastructure in a secondary setting.
Big Walnut Creek formed the spine of the remainder of the trip. The Houck Covered Bridge, built in 1880 by the Massillon Bridge Company, carried County Road 550 South across the creek using the Howe truss system. At the time of construction, the bridge was one of only a handful of reliable crossings in the township, serving nearby farms and Hamrick Station on the Vandalia railroad line. The Howe truss, with its adjustable iron tension members, addressed structural weaknesses common in earlier all-wood designs. Later road improvements reduced traffic at the site, and the bridge was eventually bypassed, allowing it to survive through rehabilitation rather than replacement.
Downstream, the Oakalla Covered Bridge marked another Burr arch crossing built by Joseph J. Daniels in 1898. The bridge owed its existence to nearby limestone quarries, lime kilns, and a railroad station that once made the area a small industrial hub. Daniels’ heavy timber frame combined king-post trusses with spliced wooden arches, a configuration well suited to local materials and loads. As quarrying declined and road networks shifted, the bridge lost its functional importance early, long before its closure to vehicles in 2022. Today, it stands as a reminder of how closely bridge construction once tracked local industry.
Elsewhere, the Pinhook Bridge reflected early twentieth-century road improvement campaigns driven by resident petitions rather than state planning. Built in 1913 by the Vincennes Bridge Company, the pin-connected Pratt through truss sat on concrete abutments prepared by road contractors under county supervision. The bridge was rehabilitated in 1984 but closed to traffic in 2006, remaining in place largely because removal proved cost-prohibitive. Its abandoned deck and exposed connections made its structural logic easy to read.
The McCoy Road Bridge, completed in 1923, represented a later phase of Pratt truss construction, still fabricated by the Vincennes Bridge Company but built under increasingly centralized standards. Rehabilitated in 2003, it continued to carry local traffic, illustrating how incremental updates allowed older designs to remain serviceable.
The day ended at two remarkable covered spans. Baker’s Camp Covered Bridge, constructed in 1901 by Joseph J. Daniels using the Burr arch system. Built along the Danville–Rockville Road, the bridge was bypassed after the route was incorporated into and later removed from the state highway system. Periodic rehabilitations preserved the structure even as traffic patterns shifted away from it.
Nearby, the Rolling Stone Covered Bridge, built in 1915 by Joseph Albert Britton, marked one of the later Burr arch crossings in the county. Once an important connector between small towns, its relevance diminished after the designation of new state roads, leaving the bridge intact but peripheral.
Seen together in winter, these bridges formed a continuous record of changing priorities: from local petition to state standard, from timber to iron, from adaptation to abandonment. Snow reduced them to structure and line, allowing their histories and technical decisions to emerge.