Colville Covered Bridge
Bourbon County, near Millersburg. Built 1877, 124 ft. long. Bourbon County's last surviving covered bridge, of a county that once had 27.
Colville Covered Bridge was built in 1877 by Jacob Bower of the Bower Bridge Company of Maysville, using yellow poplar prized at the time for being nearly indestructible once shielded from the weather. It spans Hinkston Creek about four miles northwest of Millersburg on a multiple kingpost Burr truss, running 124 feet long and 18 feet wide, perched some 28 feet above the water below — high enough that, as with many covered bridges, the enclosed sides were thought to keep horses from spooking at the sight of the drop.
Bourbon County once had as many as 27 covered bridges crossing its streams; Colville is the only one left. It has taken its share of damage over the years — an overloaded truck knocked it out of commission for about a year in 1972, and record flooding on Hinkston Creek in 1997 pushed the water more than a foot above the bridge's own decking, shifting it on its abutments and pulling it away from the road. A two-year renovation restored it afterward. The bridge was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974 and remains open today to local and farm traffic on Colville Road.
