Emerts Cove Covered Bridge

Emerts Cove Covered Bridge crosses the Middle Prong of the Little Pigeon River in the Pittman Center community just outside Gatlinburg, in a setting close enough to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park to offer views of the surrounding peaks through its side windows. The bridge takes its name from Frederick Emert, a Revolutionary War veteran who settled the area with his family in 1790 as its first residents; the Emerts are buried about half a mile away in the Emert's Cove Cemetery, and the Middle Prong itself carries a designation as an "outstanding national resource water," awarded by the State of Tennessee in March 1998.

Despite its historic-looking log cabin styling, the bridge itself is a 21st-century structure: Pittman Center Mayor Judy Perryman and the town's Board of Aldermen secured state and federal funding in 1997 to build it, and the 84-foot span was completed in the spring of 2000 by builders Steve McCarter and Garry Shultz. Rather than a working transportation crossing recovered from the 19th century, Emerts Cove is a deliberate, community-built tribute to the pioneer family whose name the surrounding cove still carries — a modern bridge built to honor a much older story.