Parke County Covered Bridges
A Saturday Driver's Guide
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Parke County, in west central Indiana, calls itself the Covered Bridge Capital of the World,
and in eleven years of Saturday drives I have never heard anybody argue. The county has more than
thirty covered bridges, most still standing on the back roads where they were built in the second half
of the 1800s, and most of them painted barn red. I live in Fort Wayne, three hours away, and I go
down whenever I need to remember what a quiet road sounds like.
Why the roof?
The roof isn't there for the travelers. It's there for the bridge. Wooden trusses left out in the
rain and snow rot in a couple of decades. Put a roof and siding over the same timbers and they can stand
for a century and more, and these have. Walk inside almost any of them and look at the walls: a great
curved timber arch sweeps from one end to the other, bolted into the trusses on both sides. That's the
Burr arch, and it's carrying a good share of the load over your head. Two builders, J.J. Daniels and
J.A. Britton, put up a great many of the county's bridges between them.
A Saturday
I leave Fort Wayne at six with a thermos of coffee and get to Rockville, the county seat, in time
for breakfast on the courthouse square. There is a diner on the square with a pie case by the register,
and I have never once left without a slice of something, at nine in the morning, and I'm not sorry. The
county has marked out driving routes, each with its own color, with signs at the turns. Pick one, follow
the signs and take your time. Many of the roads are gravel, and the bridges are one lane, so stop, look and
let the other fellow go first.
| My three favorites |
| Bridgeton. The bridge stands beside an old mill and a
dam, and you can hear the water from inside it. Buy a bag of cornmeal at the mill and you'll have the
trip with you all winter. |
| Mansfield. Another old mill, a roller mill
this time, and a long red bridge over the creek. On a fall afternoon the light comes through the gaps in
the siding in stripes. |
| Turkey Run. The state park has the Narrows bridge over
Sugar Creek, and trails down through sandstone ravines with ladders where the trail gives up. Wear shoes
you don't mind getting wet. |
The Covered Bridge Festival
Every October since 1957 the county has held the Parke County Covered Bridge Festival. It starts the
second Friday of the month and runs ten days, so this year it's October 8 through 17. The
courthouse square in Rockville is the center of it, and Bridgeton and Mansfield fill up with tents and
craft booths and smoke from the kettles. My advice, from experience:
- Go on a weekday if you possibly can. On the Saturdays the cars back up for miles.
- Bring cash. Plenty of the booths can't take checks or cards.
- Eat the ham and beans with cornbread, and bring home a jar of apple butter.
- See the bridges, not just the booths. The routes are open, and the bridges are why you came.
- Be off the gravel roads by dark. Your car will thank you.
If you're going and want to know which bridge to see first, write to me. I'll tell you. I'll be
the one at Bridgeton on Tuesday morning, early, with the thermos.
Fellow bridge lovers since February 20, 1999:
   
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