Catlin Covered Bridge
Parke County, Adams Township, at Rockville Golf Course. Built 1907, 72 ft. long. Rescued and relocated in 1961 after the historic 'Ben Hur Highway' route was widened around it.
The Catlin Covered Bridge was built in 1907 by Clark McDaniel, originally spanning Sunderland Creek on the north side of the village of Catlin along the old Rockville-Rosedale Road, a route locally nicknamed the "Ben Hur Highway" after Crawfordsville author and Civil War general Lew Wallace. Even after U.S. 41 was completed nearby, the old road continued to carry heavy agricultural truck traffic that the aging bridge could no longer safely bear, and it was condemned and closed in the late 1950s. Rather than let the structure be demolished, local preservationists raised funds to save it, and in 1961 the Garrard Brothers Trucking Company relocated the single-span Burr Arch Truss bridge to the Rockville Golf Course north of town, where it now spans a small waterway known as Bill Diddle Creek, named for the course's designer. No longer carrying vehicle traffic, the bridge today functions purely as a scenic, publicly accessible landmark on the golf course grounds. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on December 22, 1978, as part of the countywide Multiple Property Submission, preserving its history even after its move away from its original crossing.
