Drift Creek Bridge

The Drift Creek Bridge is by tradition regarded as the oldest surviving covered bridge in Oregon, built in 1914 to carry what was then the primary north-south coastal route near the community once called Lutgens, later renamed Nice in 1917, close to present-day Lincoln City. Its Howe truss structure, with board-and-batten siding, arched portals, and ribbon windows along the eaves, survived a 1960s highway bypass to concrete construction by continuing to serve as a pedestrian crossing and pioneer monument. But by 1988, rot and insect damage had grown severe enough that officials closed it entirely, propping it up with temporary steel beams to keep it from collapsing into the water. Rather than let it be lost, Lincoln County dismantled the bridge in 1997 and donated its timbers to private landowners Laura and Kerry Sweitz, who rebuilt the structure in 2000 on their property eight miles north, now spanning Bear Creek near Rose Lodge, and granted a permanent public easement so visitors could still access it. Because the rebuilt bridge occupies a different site and even a different waterway than its original 1979 National Register listing described, it was formally removed from the NRHP in July 1998. Reopened to the public in July 2001, the Drift Creek Bridge stands today as an unusual public-private preservation success story, even without its historic designation.