Arthur A. Smith Covered Bridge

The Arthur A. Smith Covered Bridge started out under a different name entirely. Built in 1869-1870 downstream in the Colrain village of Shattuckville, it was known as the Fox Bridge, after the nearby Fox Tavern. The site proved too flood-prone: a major flood badly damaged the bridge in 1878, and it sat abandoned for close to two decades until the town voted to rehabilitate it and move it to its present location on the North River in 1896, renaming it for Arthur Alan Smith, a Colrain native born in 1841 who served as a Union Army captain in the Civil War before relocating to Alabama and becoming active in community affairs there.

It's the only Burr arch truss covered bridge currently standing in Massachusetts, built on the paired-arch design Theodore Burr patented in 1814. The bridge was taken out of service and moved to adjacent land in 1982 while its future was sorted out, and it took until 2006 for a full restoration to return it to its rightful place spanning the North River. Today it carries pedestrians and cyclists only, a 98-foot span that has now stood in three different configurations across three different centuries.