The 1880s Ryot Covered Bridge is a historic, wooden covered bridge located in West St. Clair Township in Bedford County, Pennsylvania. However, there are several claims that the bridge was built in the late 1860s. The bridge takes its name from the nearby town of Ryot. It is a Burr Truss design, 83 1/2 feet long, which crosses Dunnings Creek and rests on stone and mortar abutments. The Ryot Bridge is drivable and is one of fifteen historic covered bridges located in Bedford County.

This 12-foot-wide bridge was set on fire by teenage arsonists in 2002. Most of the wooden parts of the bridge were badly damaged. The Ryot Bridge was rehabilitated only seven years earlier, so most of the added steel support remained intact, along with the stone abutments. Bedford County Commissioners were committed to rebuilding this structure, and in 2004 was restored by P. Joseph Lehman, Inc., at a total cost of $300,000, and reopened to traffic that same year. A small portion of the total project cost was recouped from the juveniles who set the fire.

All of the hardware components of the bridge (anchor and structure bolts, wash plates, bearing plates, and beam clips) were hot-dip galvanized to maintain the historical integrity of the bridge. The hardware was stripped of paint and the previous galvanized coating, and then re-galvanized and used in the new construction. Recycling the original pieces lowered the cost of the project.

Ryot Bridge was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980. A request to remove the bridge from the National Register was submitted after it was badly damaged by a fire in 2002.

Located at:  N40 08.538   W78 37.465    -    WGCB #38-05-17

Photographed in June of 2025

Photos by Millard Farmer