Tennessee has 6 remaining Covered Bridges, but once had hundreds of covered bridges in the past. There are however a total of 36 covered bridges in Tennesse built between 1875 and 2001. Tennessee's five authentic covered bridges display four different truss types, Queenpost, Kingpost, Howe, and Pratt. Three historic covered bridges are still open to motor traffic. Several of Tennessee's covered bridges are not readily available for public view, but those offer a variety of styles and sizes to be enjoyed by all.

With 19,200 miles of streams, Tennessee contains a variety of small rivers and creeks as well as several major rivers with 1,062 miles of navigable waterways. In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, many parts of the country were too involved with basic settlement issues and local matters to attempt the development of road networks. Settlers in areas such as Tennessee were too busy trying to survive in the wilderness to expend much effort on roads. Although roads were needed during this period, individuals or land companies rarely built them. Through the 1820s, the federal government built most of the larger roads, however, they were few in number. Between the 1830s and 1850s, turnpikes built by individuals or companies as profit-making ventures dominated the road-building effort, and many turnpike companies flourished.  However, by the 1880s, as stable local governments at the city and county level emerged, they became responsible for most road projects within their jurisdiction. This is when the construction of bridges began.

Photographs were taken in early December 2019.