Covered Bridges Scramble Squares
Covered bridges were first built in ancient Babylon (780 BC). China also built covered bridges more than 2,000 years ago. Andrea Palladio, a classicist Italian architect of the 16th Century, invented the bridge truss, a self-supporting span capable of spanning long distances.
The first covered bridge in America was built in 1804 across the Hudson River in New York by Theodore Burr of Connecticut . This bridge was called the Waterford Bridge, and it carried traffic across the Hudson for 105 years. Bridge builders covered their bridges to protect their timber trusses from rain, snow and sunshine. By maintaining the bridges timber trusses under uniform temperature and moisture conditions, their timber truss spans lasted at least three times longer than timbers exposed to the weather. In addition to sheltering the timber trusses of the bridge, a roof strengthens the entire bridge structure and girds the bridge against the wind. Almost every bridge built in the United States in the 19th Century was covered. As America moved west, so did its covered bridges. The first recorded covered bridge built in Oregon was located in Oregon City in 1851. A second covered bridge was also built at Oregon City in 1852, but only a year later, both bridges were swept away by flood waters.
Bridges being washed away by floods caused builders to begin building with a combination of iron and wood trusses. With the advent of the automobile age, covered bridge building advanced from the bridge carpenter to companies specializing in light prefabricated steel bridges. Bridges were built with windows, laminated floors, asphalt paved wearing surfaces, and interior whitewashing and were more aesthetically pleasing than covered bridges built previously.
Today, covered bridges symbolize small-town and rural America and a simpler, more tranquil time. The nostalgia for a culture more closely tied to the land and to nature encourages explorers to leave the highways and follow dirt roads under canopies of tree branches across remote rivers to enjoy the therapeutic beauty of the landscape in search of picturesque covered bridges that early Americans built as they built their new nation.
There are many quaint and sentimental legends about covered bridges. One such legend is that covered bridges were built to resemble barns so that farm animals would feel at home and would not stampede when crossing the rushing rivers below. Of course, covered bridges have also always provided an ideal private rendezvous spot for a secret kiss.
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