Skip to main content

Fallasburg Covered Bridge - Michigan

Image
By


 
Built in 1871 by Jared N. Bresee for $1500, the Fallasburg Covered Bridge is a 100-foot-long Howe truss design covered bridge that crosses the Flat River in the historic village of Fallasburg, Michigan, just north of Lowell in Kent County. The bridge is 14 feet wide and 12 feet high. The Fallasburg Covered Bridge is one of just six covered bridges remaining in Michigan, the oldest covered bridge that sits on its original site, and one of only three covered bridges in the state that is open to traffic. One of the other covered bridges in Michigan that is open to traffic is the Whites Covered Bridge, located just a few miles north along the Flat River.

Signs at each portal provide caution of a $5 fine for riding or driving faster than a walk, which is typical of covered bridges of a certain vintage. Repairs throughout the years have allowed the covered bridge to remain open to vehicular traffic and even surmount damage caused in 2013 when a heavy truck drove over the bridge despite exceeding the three-ton load limit. Due to its historic nature, the Fallasburg Covered Bridge was listed with the Michigan State Register of Historic Places on February 12, 1959, and the National Register on March 16, 1972.

The Fallasburg Covered Bridge is located within Fallasburg Park, and not far from the bridge is the Fallasburg Historic District, which was designated as a Historical District with the National Register of Historic Places in 1999. Fallasburg Village was founded during the 1830s by John Wesley Fallass, and there is a Fallasburg Village which is now a historic district. This includes twenty acres along the banks of the Flat River, the covered bridge, schoolhouse, cemetery, the Fallas House and Misner House museums, and the Orlin Douglass/Tower Farm.

The Flat River is peaceful and seemed to live up to its name when I visited.

Bridge portal and a sign mentioning a $5 fine for driving across the bridge faster than a walk. I wonder if those fines would still be charged today, or if the signs are there for its historical nature.

This seems to be a nice spot to have a picnic or go fishing.

The Fallasburg Covered Bridge meshes well with its natural surroundings on this spring morning.

Time to drive across the bridge and go to my next destination.



How to Get There:


Sources and Links:
Pure Michigan -  Fallasburg Covered Bridge, Pioneer Village & School
Fallasburg Historical Society - Welcome to Fallasburg
Kent County Road Commission - Kent County Road Commission Blog
DaleJTravis.com - Michigan Covered Bridges List
Labels:
Location: Fallasburg Covered Bridge, 13944 Covered Bridge Rd NE, Lowell, MI 49331, USA

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

May 2023 Ontario Trip (Part 3 of 3)

By
  Over the years, I have made plenty of trips to Ontario, crisscrossing the southern, central and eastern parts of the province. Living in Upstate New York, it's pretty easy to visit our neighbor to the north, or is that our neighbor to the west? Ottawa is one of my favorite cities to visit anywhere in the world, plus I've discovered the charm of Kingston, the waterfalls of Hamilton (which is on the same Niagara Escarpment that brings us Niagara Falls), the sheer beauty of the Bruce Peninsula, and more. But I hadn't explored much of Cottage Country. So I decided to change that, and what better time to go than over Memorial Day weekend, when the daylight is long and I have an extra day to explore. On the third and final day of my trip, I started in Huntsville and made my way through Muskoka District and Haliburton County, passing by many lakes along the way. I stopped in towns such as Dorset, Haliburton and Bancroft before making a beeline down to Belleville and then over th...
Post a Comment
Read more

Abandoned Fowler Avenue in Clovis, California

By
Originally Fowler Avenue in the city of Clovis had a brief discontinuation approaching Herndon Avenue.  Fowler Avenue traffic heading northbound was required to detour briefly onto westbound Herndon Avenue.  During 2001 this discontinuation was removed when Fowler Avenue was reconfigured to access the Sierra Freeway (California State Route 168) via an interchange.  This led to a segment of the original alignment of Fowler Avenue just south of Herndon Avenue to be abandoned.  Despite a shopping center opening over part of the original Fowler Avenue alignment in 2016 much of the abandoned roadway remains.   The history of the abandoned original alignment of Fowler Avenue in Clovis The original alignment of California State Route 168 departed downtown Clovis eastbound along Tollhouse Road.  This original alignment did not interact with Fowler Avenue at the Herndon Avenue intersection.  Fowler Avenue north of Tollhouse Road ran north to Herndon Avenue...
Post a Comment
Read more

Hot Springs Drive (Tulare County Mountain Road 56)

By
Hot Springs Drive is an approximately twenty-mile rural highway in the Sierra Nevada foothills of Tulare County.  The Hot Springs Drive corridor begins at Old Stage Road at Fountain Springs and extends eastward to Parker Pass Road near California Hot Springs.  Hot Springs Drive is carried by Tulare County Mountain Road 56 and acts as an extension of Avenue 56 (Tulare County Route J22).   What is now California Hot Springs originated as the Deer Creek Hot Springs Resort in 1882.  The resort on Deer Creek was originally served by a Control Road which required traffic alternate at different times of the day.  The modern California Hot Springs resort would incorporate in 1905 following an ownership change.  The Control Road corridor was replaced by Hot Springs Drive around 1915 which intended to serve increasing amount of automotive traffic to California Hot Springs.  Much of the resort would later burn in 1968 but was rebuilt in the 1980s. ...
Post a Comment
Read more