Ada Covered Bridge
Kent County, Ada. Built 1867, 125 ft. long. A Brown truss bridge over the Thornapple River, twice rebuilt by community fundraising after a roof collapse and a fire.
Ada Covered Bridge, also known locally as the Bradfield Bridge, was built in 1867 by William Holmes to carry Bronson Street across the Thornapple River just south of where it joins the Grand River. It's built on a Brown truss, patented by Josiah Brown Jr. of Buffalo in 1857 — a design using diagonal compression beams paired with tension members that slant inward toward the center of the span. Before an upstream dam tamed the river, flooding was such a problem that farmers reportedly drove wagonloads of stones onto the bridge during high water just to help hold it to its foundation.
The bridge carried a key route into the village of Ada until 1930, when a new highway and concrete bridge downstream took over, leaving Ada Covered Bridge to pedestrian traffic only. Its 20th-century history has been rockier than most: a heavy snow collapsed the roof in 1979, and the community rallied to rebuild it with private donations, only for the freshly restored bridge to burn down shortly afterward. Residents rebuilt it a second time, this time with support from the Amway Corporation, headquartered right in Ada. It's listed on the National Register of Historic Places and stands today as a testament to how much a small town can want to keep an old bridge standing.