The Hughes Covered Bridge was built in 1889 and the builder is unknown, the Queenpost was used in the construction. The bridge is 55 feet 6 inches long and 12 feet 4 inches wide., it crosses Ten Mile Creek.

The Township owns and maintains the landscape around the structure, it is only open to foot traffic.

The history of the Hughes Covered Bridge is long and well-documented. In 1889 Amwell Township built the Queenpost truss bridge. However, the combination of hewed and sawed timbers in the truss system suggests that this bridge replaced an earlier bridge in the same location. Another possibility is that materials from a bridge that had washed away, which originally stood close by, were used in the construction of the Hughes Bridge.

In support of these possible theories is the date of the bridge, 1889, immediately following the floods of 1888. In evidence of this, there is a map dated 1878 in Rural Reflections of Amwell Township, Volume 1, that shows a bridge located on the property of Esq'r Hughes and Sons in the vicinity of two sawmills. This confirms the possibility that, before the floods of 1888, a bridge stood in this general area.

In 1915, Washington County took over the maintenance of the bridge. The County expressed a desire in 1971 to move the bridge to Mingo Creek Park and began demolishing the bridge. Amwell Township expressed what they considered their rights to ownership of the bridge and filed suit against Washington County on January 26, 1971, to stop the County from moving the bridge. in court, the County maintained that in 1915 when it took over the maintenance of the bridge, it also acquired ownership of the Hughes. On January 30, 1971, a judge ruled in favor of Amwell Township and ordered Washington County to restore the bridge to the condition it was in previous to the demolition process.

(Note: It would have been much better if the county had won that court case, after photographing the bridges in Mingo Park, which have been relocated, and the Hughes, it is not hard to see there is no comparison in the upkeep and maintenance, Mingo Park by far are the best.)

Today, the Hughes is used only for foot traffic and stands in its original park-like location in a field off of Interstate 79 at the Marianna Exit, south of Washington. It has vertical board siding on both the portals and sides; it is painted barn red both inside and out; has four rectangular windows on each side together with narrow eave openings and a tin-covered gable roof. There is no additional steel or wood reinforcement and the bridge rests on a concrete abutment at the north end, and a cut stone and mortar abutment at the south end.  It has short, cut stone and mortar wing walls, capped with concrete at both ends.

Posted to the National Register of Historic Places on June 22, 1979.

Located at:  N40 01.364    W80 10.367      -      WGCB #38-63-17

Photographed in the Summer of 2011.