Skip to main content

Felton Covered Bridge

On a recent Bay Area trip I visited the Felton Covered Bridge located on the San Lorenzo River in the Santa Cruz Mountains.


The Felton Covered Bridge specifically is located in the community of Felton and was constructed between 1892 to 1893.  The Felton Covered Bridge was the first modernized road crossing of the San Lorenzo River into Felton which spans 80 feet.  The Felton Covered Bridge is typically cited as the tallest Covered Bridge in the United States and stayed in service as a roadway until 1937 when a new crossing was built directly to the north.  The Felton Covered Bridge was converted to a pedestrian structure and is now part of Covered Bridge Park.  The Felton Covered Bridge was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1957 and underwent restoration which was completed by 1987.



The Felton Covered Bridge can be accessed from both sides of the San Lorenzo River via Covered Bridge Road.   The photos below are from the western bank of the San Lorenzo River.



The tall height of the Felton Covered Bridge is best observed from the east bank of the San Lorenzo River.






This 1896 Area Map of the Santa Cruz Mountains and San Francisco Bay shows the Felton Covered Bridge crossing the San Lorenzo River in Felton.

1896 Area Map

The 1935 California Divisions of Highways Map shows the route over the Felton Covered Bridge just a couple years prior to it being replaced upstream.

1935 Santa Cruz County Highway Map

The above map shows a Southern Pacific Spur Line between Santa Cruz and Boulder Creek.  Said SP line would have crossed the San Lorenzo River just south of the Felton Covered Bridge.  According to bridgehunter.com the SP bridge over the San Lorenzo River was Pratt Truss that was built in 1908.



The 1937 bridge carries Graham Hill Road to CA 9 in downtown Felton.  The 1937 bridge is an arch concrete design just north of the Felton Covered Bridge.




Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Interstate 40's Tumultuous Ride Through the Pigeon River Gorge

In the nearly 60 years Interstate 40 has been open to traffic through the Pigeon River Gorge in the mountains of Western North Carolina, it has been troubled by frequent rockslides and damaging flooding, which has seen the over 30-mile stretch through North Carolina and Tennessee closed for months at a time. Most recently, excessive rainfall from Hurricane Helene in September 2024 saw sections of Interstate 40 wash away into a raging Pigeon River. While the physical troubles of Interstate 40 are well known, how I-40 came to be through the area is a tale of its own. Interstate 40 West through Haywood County near mile marker 10. I-40's route through the Pigeon River Gorge dates to local political squabbles in the 1940s and a state highway law written in 1921. A small note appeared in the July 28, 1945, Asheville Times. It read that the North Carolina State Highway Commission had authorized a feasibility study of a "...water-level road down [the] Pigeon River to the Tennessee l

Mines Road

Mines Road is an approximately twenty-eight-mile highway located in the rural parts of the Diablo Range east of the San Francisco Bay Area.  Mines Road begins in San Antonio Valley in Santa Clara County and terminates at Tesla Road near Livermore of Alameda County.  The highway essentially is a modern overlay of the 1840s Mexican haul trail up Arroyo Mocho known as La Vereda del Monte.  The modern corridor of Mines Road took shape in the early twentieth century following development of San Antonio Valley amid a magnesite mining boom.  Part 1; the history of Mines Road Modern Mines Road partially overlays the historic corridor used by La Vereda del Monte (Mountain Trail).  La Vereda del Monte was part of a remote overland route through the Diablo Range primarily used to drive cattle from Alta California to Sonora.  The trail was most heavily used during the latter days of Alta California during the 1840s. La Vereda del Monte originated at Point of Timber between modern day Byron and Bre

Route 75 Tunnel - Ironton, Ohio

In the Ohio River community of Ironton, Ohio, there is a former road tunnel that has a haunted legend to it. This tunnel was formerly numbered OH 75 (hence the name Route 75 Tunnel), which was renumbered as OH 93 due to I-75 being built in the state. Built in 1866, it is 165 feet long and once served as the northern entrance into Ironton, originally for horses and buggies and later for cars. As the tunnel predated the motor vehicle era, it was too narrow for cars to be traveling in both directions. But once US 52 was built in the area, OH 93 was realigned to go around the tunnel instead of through the tunnel, so the tunnel was closed to traffic in 1960. The legend of the haunted tunnel states that since there were so many accidents that took place inside the tunnel's narrow walls, the tunnel was cursed. The haunted legend states that there was an accident between a tanker truck and a school bus coming home after a high school football game on a cold, foggy Halloween night in 1