ADAMS COVERED BRIDGE

photo by D. G. MacLean

Pictures Info.

The Adams Covered Bridge is no longer standing … it crossed Little Raccoon on County Road East 100 North, just east of Nyesville, in Parke County. This single span Burr Arch Truss structure had a length of 154 feet, or 172 feet including the 9-foot overhang at each end, with portals that were 16 feet wide by 12 feet 6 inches high. The Adams Covered Bridge is said to have been built by a local family in 1907, which apparently formed the Adams Construction Company. Destroyed by floodwaters on Halloween night 1969, the local paper noted that an earlier flood had caused damage to the east end of the Burr Arch and this, along with a leaking roof, made the bridge structurally unsound and it had been closed to traffic before the 1968 Covered Bridge Festival. This article, from the Rockville Republican dated November 6, 1968, which I found among the papers of M. L. Davies, went on to say:

George Gould identified a World Guide number of 14-61-02 for the Adams Covered Bridge in his book "Indiana Covered Bridges Thru the Years," published in 1977 by the Indiana Covered Bridge Society, Inc. In the February 1938 "Indiana History Bulletin" Robert B. Yule and Richard C. Smith assigned the designation "nb" to this Covered Timber Bridge located between Sections 2 and 35, Townships 16 and 16 North, and Range 7 West, about 1 mile northeast of the State Sanitarium.

n February of 1970 the Jessup Covered Bridge was moved to this site from its original location near Jessup, Parke County, but it too was destroyed during a storm in 1989 (for more information see the Jessup Covered Bridge information elsewhere in this document). Plans are afoot to move the Sanatorium Covered Bridge, another Parke County's landmark, to this site.

• Covered Bridge Project Resources

• Regarding Covered Bridge Designations

• PCI, Covered Bridge Capital

... Photographic selection of Parke County Covered Bridges ...