Bunker Hill Covered Bridge
Catawba County, Claremont. Built 1895, 81 ft. long. Possibly the last Haupt truss covered bridge remaining in the United States, and a National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark.
Bunker Hill Covered Bridge crosses Lyle Creek on a bypassed section of Island Ford Road near Claremont in Catawba County, and it holds a genuinely unique engineering distinction: it's believed to be the only surviving covered bridge in the United States built on a Haupt truss, a design developed by Civil War general and railroad engineer Herman Haupt. The bridge was built in 1895 by Andrew Loretz Ramsour, a local builder whose family name is still tied to the surrounding community.
The bridge's structural rarity earned it serious institutional recognition: the American Society of Civil Engineers designated it a National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark in 2001, and it's separately listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Preserved today by the Catawba County Historical Association, Bunker Hill is one of just two surviving covered bridges anywhere in North Carolina — a state that, unlike its covered-bridge-rich neighbors, has almost none left standing, making this particular structure's one-of-a-kind truss design all the more significant.
