Coral Springs Covered Bridge
Broward County, Coral Springs. Built 1964, 40 ft. long. Florida's only covered bridge on a public road, built as the ceremonial gateway to a new planned city.
Coral Springs Covered Bridge carries NW 95th Avenue over a drainage canal just south of Wiles Road, and it holds a singular distinction: it's the only covered bridge on a public right-of-way anywhere in Florida. Built in early 1964 by Lewie Mullins and George Porter, to a design by George Hodapp, the bridge was commissioned by Coral Ridge Properties as the ceremonial entrance to the newly planned city of Coral Springs — a deliberate "Old South" colonial touch dropped onto what was then undeveloped South Florida wetland.
The bridge's steel truss frame carries a wood-shingled roof and 25 wooden rafters, and its builders went so far as to commission murals from the American Snuff Company of Winston-Salem, North Carolina — chewing-tobacco advertising artwork chosen specifically to make the brand-new structure look weathered and "seasoned" from day one. The bridge has survived both Hurricane Cleo in 1964, mere months after it was built, and Hurricane Wilma in 2005, and remains in daily use for vehicle and pedestrian traffic. It's now maintained by the City of Coral Springs and designated a Florida Heritage Site, a genuinely unique landmark in a state with no historic covered-bridge tradition of its own.