The 1933 Rochester Covered Bridge is a covered bridge located in Douglas County, Oregon. Built by Floyd Frear, it carries Rochester Road over Calapooya Creek about 3 miles (5 km) west of Sutherlin. The bridge design, which Historic Highway Bridges of Oregon calls "unique among Oregon's housed structures", includes side windows with curved tops. This 80-foot Howe truss bridge has four windows on each side, portals with arched openings, and exposed false beams at the gable ends.
According to the Oregon Department of Transportation, after county workers burned down another covered bridge to make way for a new concrete bridge in the vicinity in the late 1950s, a group of armed residents guarded the Rochester Bridge one night to protect it from the same fate. The next day, county commissioners told the residents that the bridge would not be burned. In 1969, the county remodeled the bridge by replacing portal boarding, approaches, and abutments.
Oregon's Covered Bridges includes a photograph of an earlier bridge, "at the end of its useful life." The photo caption states that the age of construction for the earlier bridge is unknown, but records indicate a covered bridge at this site as early as 1862.
Located at: N43 24.109 W123 21.778 - WGCB #37-10-04
Photographed in May of 2025
Photos by Millard Farmer