NH Covered Bridges

At some point in time there were over 400 known covered bridges in the state of New Hampshire. As of today there are only 55 known to be left. Due to storms, fires, damage from careless drivers, vandals, and just poor upkeep these beautiful bridges (that in my opinion are pure works of historical art) are gone.

At one time the United States had over 12,000 covered bridges but by the 1950’s there were less than 1,500 of them left in existence. That is quite a drop!!

The first New Hampshire covered bridge appeared in the 1820’s. One of the earliest ones was the Haverhill-Bath Bridge which is a town lattice truss structure. It was built in 1829 and is still standing today (as of 2004).

For a covered bridge to qualify for the National Register of Historical Places it must be at least 50 years old and during repairs can not have been rebuilt with too much new material. This has to be a difficult feat with all of the damages that happen to these bridges. In the next town over from me there is a covered bridge that has been damaged 3 times in the past 2 years from vehicles too big to fit under the clearance!

All covered bridges were commonly referred to as “kissing bridges” in their prime since they were a good place to steal a kiss from your partner as you slowly passed through the long dark tunnel to the other side with no onlookers to see.

Want to know more about these beautiful piece of architectural history? Then follow along because I will be posting more about each covered bridge still in existence in the state of New Hampshire that is listed on the National Registry as well as others I see that were built but don't fit the qualifications to make the list.