Centennial Covered Bridge

The Centennial Covered Bridge crosses the Coast Fork Willamette River alongside Main Street in downtown Cottage Grove, connecting the historic district with the Applegate Trail Interpretive Center and a veterans memorial. Built in 1987 to mark the hundredth anniversary of Cottage Grove's founding, the 84-foot, 10-foot-wide Howe truss structure was constructed largely by volunteer labor and funded through community fundraising, including sales of personalized bricks, a train ride, and a barbecue. Rather than using new lumber throughout, builders incorporated old-growth timbers salvaged from two historic Lane County covered bridges, the Meadows Bridge and the Brumbaugh Bridge, both dismantled in 1979, giving the new span a direct physical link to bridges lost decades earlier. Carrying only pedestrian and bicycle traffic, the Centennial Bridge is often described as roughly a 3/8-scale echo of the nearby Chambers Railroad Bridge. A time capsule containing 1980s memorabilia was sealed into the bridge's entrance at its dedication. As a modern commemorative structure rather than a historic-era original, it is not individually listed on the National Register of Historic Places, but it remains a signature stop on Cottage Grove's self-guided covered bridge tour, reinforcing the city's identity as the "Covered Bridge Capital of the West."