State of Alabama Covered Bridge Images and Information

Alabama's 11 remaining Covered Bridges are reminiscent of a more romantic time when people rode in horse-drawn buggies and couples stole kisses beneath their roofs. But they are also keepers of history, places built by former slaves, or where Civil War soldiers trod and, according to one legend, an outlaw was hanged.

A 1936 Associated Press article described Alabama's love affair with covered bridges: "Alabamians began building covered bridges almost as soon as they began building Baptist and Methodist churches and one-room schoolhouses. A bridge without a roof was not a thing for a county to be proud of and, besides, when a shower came what were travelers in open buggies to do for shelter? And day and night, covered bridge rendezvous for lovers were common while youngsters concealed themselves among the rafters to listen in?"

Today, only 11 historical covered bridges still stand in Alabama, although a nostalgic trend has led to the construction of as many as 36 modern covered bridges in parks, along greenways, and on private property.

The location of Alabama's first covered bridge is disputed. Townspeople say the bridge over Buzzard Roost Creek in Colbert County was built circa 1820, but the National Park Service estimated its origins in 1860. The Buzzard Roost, a 94-foot span, was damaged by a flood in 1965 and restored by the county. It was later moved to the Natchez Trace Parkway and destroyed by arson in 1972.

The state's oldest covered bridge in existence today was built before 1850, possibly as early as 1839. The 60-foot Coldwater Creek bridge is located in Calhoun County.

Construction of wooden bridges began to wane in the 1930s as concrete became available. The 1936 Associated Press article in the Spartanburg, S.C., Herald-Journal reported that by 1935, the Works Progress Administration was constructing cover-less bridges of steel and concrete. "There was no more use for a covered bridge than for a piano-box buggy, a buggy whip, a hoop skirt, or red-top boots."

A 1969 article in the Times Daily in Florence reported that by 1958, 46 covered bridges remained in 13 Alabama counties. From 1958 to 1968, the state lost three bridges per year to neglect, floods, fires, vandalism, and demolition, the article stated.

Because several of Alabama's remaining covered bridges are more than 100 years old, it's not surprising they have much history attached to them.

According to legend, the Alamuchee-Bellamy covered bridge, built in 1868, was the site of the 1886 hanging of one of Alabama's most notorious outlaws, former sheriff Stephen S. Renfroe, although some accounts, including one by the late historian Kathryn Tucker Windham, claim Renfroe was hanged from a tree on the banks of the Sucarnoochee River below the bridge.

The author of the 1969 article in the Times Daily in Florence wrote that the bridge was also used during the Civil War: "There is considerable reason to believe Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest rode across the Alamuchee during the War Between the States."

The Old Union Crossing Bridge moved to Mentone in DeKalb County in 1972 and was built in 1863 by Union troops to cross Otter Creek in Calhoun County.

In 2003, officials in Valley in Chambers County built a bridge in its Langdon Historic District to mimic the style of famed bridge builder Horace King. The bridge was built as an educational tool and as a memorial to King, a former Civil War-era slave who went on to become an Alabama legislator.

Photographed in December 2019.