Skip to main content

Earnest Covered Bridge - Oregon

 


The Earnest Covered Bridge is one of many covered bridges in Lane County, Oregon. Located off of the Marcola Road on Paschelke Road, just north of the town of Marcola, the Earnest Bridge is a Howe truss designed covered bridge. The bridge crosses the Mohawk River and is 137 feet in length and its largest span is 75 feet long. The Earnest Covered Bridge is the second covered bridge to be at this location, as it replaced the Adams Bridge that was first built by A.N. Striker in 1903. Eventually the Adams Bridge became dilapidated, so it was torn down and replaced with the Earnest Bridge by Lane County in 1939 for $2,449, which included the cost of demolishing the old bridge. It is believed that the new covered bridge was named Earnest after local area residents, but there is not much more information about the bridge's name than that. There is a discrepancy in the name spelling. Some documents have the spelling as "Ernest," including its listing on the National Register of Historic Places, but the bridge itself and many others are labeled "Earnest."

Like many covered bridges that were built in Lane County, the Earnest Covered Bridge features a design element of a small window on one side for motorists to view oncoming traffic. At one time circus posters lined the bridge's interior, but those have been removed or disintegrated with time. The Earnest Covered Bridge also appeared in the 1965 movie "Shenandoah", which starred James Stewart. The film company altered the bridge to meld with a Civil War era look and, then post filming, restored the bridge to its original condition along with new siding and paint. The Earnest Covered Bridge is also a beautiful picnic location with a small area for roadside parking, which can attract day trippers and plein air painters. I bet there have been some beautiful paintings created of this bridge. I visited the bridge during my own day trip around Lane County during one of my visits to Oregon. It was certainly worth the stop.









How to Get There:



Sources and Links:
Bridgehunter.com - Earnest Covered Bridge 37-20-35
Oregon.com - Mohawk River (Earnest) Covered Bridge
Eugene Cascades & Coast - Earnest Covered Bridge
Travel Oregon - Earnest Bridge
Pacific Northwest Photoblog - Earnest Covered Bridge, Oregon
Oregon Department of Transportation - Historic Highway Bridges of Oregon (PDF)

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Ghost Town Tuesday; Mannfield, FL and the stairway to Hell

Back in 2015 I went searching the Lecanto Sand Hills for the original Citrus County Seat known as Mannfield.  Unlike Centrailia in Hernando County and Fivay in Pasco County I did find something worth seeing. Mannfield is located in the Lecanto Sand Hill section of Withlacoochee State Forest somewhat east of the intersection of Citrus County Route 491 and Mansfield Road. Mannfield was named after Austin Mann and founded in Hernando County in 1884 before Citrus County Split away.  In 1887 Citrus County was split from northern Hernando County while Pasco County was spun off to the south.  Mannfield was selected as the new Citrus County seat due to it being near the county geographic center.  Reportedly Mannfield had as many as 250 people when it was the County Seat.  The town included various businesses one might include at the time, even a sawmill which was common for the area.  In 1891 Citrus County voted to move it's seat to Inverness which set the s...

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...

The mystery of Hawaii Route 144 and temporary Hawaii Route 11

The 1959 Gousha Road map of Hawaii features two largely unknown references in the form of Hawaii Route 144 and Temporary Hawaii Route 11.  Both corridors are shown running from the boundary of Hawaii Volcanoes National Park east to Glenwood via Volcano Village.  At the time Hawaii Route 11 was using the so-called "Volcano Road" which was constructed as a modernization of Mamalahoa Highway during 1927-1928.  This blog will examine the two map references and will attempt to determine what they might indicate.  The mystery of Hawaii Route 144 and Temporary Hawaii Route 11 Hawaii Route 11 is part of Mamalahoa Highway (the Hawaii Belt Road) and is the longest Hawaiian State Route at 121.97 miles.  The highway begins at the mutual junction of Hawaii Route 19 and Hawaii Route 190 in Kailua-Kona.  From Kailua-Kona the routing of Hawaii Route 11 crosses the volcanic landscapes of southern side of the Big Island.  Hawaii Route 11 terminates at Hawaii Route 19/Ka...