Buckeye Furnace Covered Bridge

Buckeye Furnace Covered Bridge. . , The covered bridge era in America was from the nineteenth century. The last covered bridge of this period was built by the State of Ohio in Vinton County in 1919, Bridges were enclosed to protect the wooden structural parts and decks from rain and snow and to prevent decay. Uncovered bridges would last about ten years, while covered bridges could last centuries.

Built in 1872, the Buckeye Furnace Bridge is historically important because it represents a truss built following the designs of one of Ohio's premier bridge builders, the Smith Bridge Company, which was among the first in the nation to make covered bridges an industrial product. This bridge was actually built by Dency, McCurdy, and Company, a local firm that purchased the rights to use Smith's design. The bridge is 68.5 feet long and 16 feet wide, with a 58.5 feet clear span.

This bridge used the Smith Truss plan, which was first patented in 1867 by Robert W. Smith of Tipp City (originally Tippecanoe), and later Toledo, Ohio. Smith would prefabricate a bridge in Toledo and ship the components to the erection site, or he would sell the parts to another builder-as was done in this case-or he would sell the plans to another builder or local official.

At the beginning of the twentieth-first century, the covered bridge needed to be replaced with a modern span because of increased traffic and overloading. The Jackson County Engineer and the Ohio Historical Society moved the covered bridge adjacent to its original location.