Pisgah Community Covered Bridge, Pisgah North Carolina

Date added: April 28, 2024
 (1971)

The Pisgah Community Covered Bridge was built around 1910 by J. J. Welch, who constructed several covered bridges in the area. Normally the building of these bridges was authorized by the county commissioners. Upon the satisfactory completion of a bridge, the commissioners paid for materials and labor. Available records, however, do not show county participation in the building of Pisgah Bridge. The bridge is forty feet long and is said to have cost $40 to build. Its modest proportions indicate it may have been built privately.

Pisgah Bridge is one of two such bridges remaining in a county where the number of covered bridges once exceeded that of any other county in the state. It is a fine example of this particular type of construction and an object of much interest to historians, engineers, architects, and artists. Ownership of the bridge appears to be vested in landowners on either side of the bridge, Lacey Strider and Gerald Parker.

A low range of mountains extends through Randolph County, creating many small streams and rivers to be forded or bridged. The Pisgah Community Covered Bridge spans one of these streams, a shallow branch of Little River, about fourteen miles south of Asheboro. It is a small forty-foot wooden structure with a gable roof and vertically sheathed sides resting on a dry wall stone pier foundation. On either side of the bridge above the four piers, the floor joists extend beyond the wall and support braces that are sheathed to create small buttresses. Openings for light and ventilation are located directly below the eaves of the roof, which is covered by standing seam tin. On the inside the modified queenpost truss system is exposed, and plank tracks or treads run the length of the floor.

Pisgah Community Covered Bridge, Pisgah North Carolina  (1971)
(1971)