Cedarburg Covered Bridge
Ozaukee County, Cedarburg. Built 1876, 120 ft. long. Wisconsin's only surviving 19th-century covered bridge, a Town lattice truss originally called the Red Bridge.
Cedarburg Covered Bridge, once known as the Red Bridge, is the last historic covered bridge standing in a state that once had roughly 40 of them. Built in 1876 to cross Cedar Creek, the 120-foot Town lattice truss bridge was constructed of pine framed with oak lattice work, a design patented decades earlier by architect Ithiel Town specifically because it could be built quickly and cheaply by workers without specialized carpentry skills. A center pier was added in 1927 to help reinforce the aging structure.
Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973, the bridge has long since been retired from vehicle service and now carries only pedestrian traffic, a much gentler use than the horse-and-wagon era it was originally built for. At 17 feet wide and about 18 feet tall from the abutments to the roofline, it remains a defining landmark of Cedarburg, a well-preserved 19th-century mill town in Ozaukee County — a rare Wisconsin survivor from an era when covered bridges dotted the state's rural crossings by the dozens.