About & method
Every Covered Bridge is a register of the standing covered bridges of the United States, compiled from public records and published by Cabin Fever Media. It exists to answer plain questions reliably — where a bridge is, how long it is, whether the federal record shows it posted or closed — without guessing at the answers.
The count, and what it means
This site publishes 608 covered bridges under that definition, each one verified in the public record.
A covered bridge, for this site, is an authentic truss covered bridge standing in the United States: a timber structure — historic, or built in the historic manner around a load-bearing truss — whose truss is protected by a roof and siding. Decorative covers over non-truss spans and bridges that no longer stand are not counted.
Per-state figures elsewhere on this site are breakdowns of that one published inventory and always sum back to it. No other total is published anywhere on this site.
Inclusion rules
A bridge is published when its covered-bridge identity is established by one of these records:
- National Register of Historic Places (National Park Service) — the property is currently listed as a covered bridge, or is listed under a shorter name and its National Register nomination — the federal record of the property — describes it as a covered bridge. Delisted properties are excluded.
- Official county inventories — a modern bridge built in the historic truss manner (1980 or later) that its county publishes in an official covered-bridge inventory, cross-checked against the National Bridge Inventory where it carries a public road. (This build applies the rule to Ashtabula County, Ohio — home of the longest covered bridge in the country — and to Madison County, Iowa, whose rebuilt Cedar Bridge left the National Register when it burned.)
Bridges documented as destroyed and not rebuilt are excluded, even where a register listing has not yet caught up. Decorative covers — siding and a roof over a span whose structure is not a timber truss — are excluded by the definition above.
Where the facts come from
- Postings, closures, clearances, lengths, years, inspection dates: the Federal Highway Administration’s National Bridge Inventory, 2025 annual file — the record states and the FHWA keep for every public-road bridge. Restrictions are printed from that record only, dated — never from travel articles or guidebooks, which the records show can disagree with the posted reality.
- Historic listings: the National Park Service’s National Register database.
- Coordinates: the National Park Service’s National Register GIS, or the bridge’s own NBI record; each page names its coordinate source.
- Identification numbers: bridges also carry numbers in the World Guide to Covered Bridges, maintained by the National Society for the Preservation of Covered Bridges. This site does not reproduce that database; where a number could not be verified from a public record, none is printed.
Interstate bridges
A bridge on a state line is published once, under the state of its primary record, and cross-listed from the other state’s page. It is never counted twice.
Access statements
Every bridge page carries an access statement with its source and the date it was checked (November 12, 2026 for this build). Bridges that are not public-road bridges in the National Bridge Inventory — park, pedestrian, railroad, and private bridges — say so plainly: their public access is not verified in federal records.
Reliance
Every Covered Bridge is a directory compiled from public records — principally the National Register of Historic Places (National Park Service) and the National Bridge Inventory (Federal Highway Administration), with a small number of modern bridges carried on official county inventories. Records lag the real world: a bridge shown here may since have been posted, closed, damaged, or destroyed, and a posting or clearance shown here may have changed since the record was inspected. Nothing on this site is a promise that a bridge is open, passable, or safe for any vehicle or load. Before travelling to a bridge, and always at the bridge itself, obey posted signs, weight and clearance limits, and official state and local road information. If a sign and this site disagree, the sign is right.