Edna Collins Covered Bridge

Edna Collins Covered Bridge, also spelled Collings, is the youngest of Putnam County's nine historic covered bridges, built in 1922 by Charles Hendrix to replace an earlier concrete bridge washed out by flooding. The 80-foot Burr Arch span crosses Little Walnut Creek near the small community of Clinton Falls in northwestern Putnam County and is believed to be the last covered bridge built in Indiana with public funds. County commissioners are said to have named it for Edna Collins, an elderly resident living nearest the crossing at the time of construction, though the name has since attached itself to a local ghost story: legend holds that a young girl named Edna drowned in the creek after failing to heed her parents' signal to come home, and that her spirit can be summoned by parking on the bridge, cutting the engine, and honking the horn three times. The Putnam County Highway Department performed structural repairs to the bridge in spring 2023, addressing beam deterioration less severe than that found on some of the county's other spans. Edna Collins Bridge was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in May 2024 along with the rest of Putnam County's covered bridges and remains open to local traffic.