Forsythe Mill Covered Bridge

The Forsythe Mill Covered Bridge (also called the Forsythe Covered Bridge) spans the Big Flat Rock River on County Road 650S southwest of Rushville, near the hamlet of Gowdy in Orange Township, Rush County, Indiana. Built in 1888 by Emmett L. Kennedy, it takes its name from Asa Forsythe, who owned the nearby Hungerford grist mill from 1870 to 1884. The 196-foot single-span structure uses the Burr Arch truss, combining a multiple king-post truss with a superimposed timber arch, and displays the rounded arch portals and decorative scrollwork distinguishing the Kennedy family's construction firm, which built dozens of Indiana's covered bridges across three generations. The bridge was documented by the Historic American Engineering Record (HAER No. IN-106) in the 1960s, producing measured drawings and photographs held by the Library of Congress. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places on February 2, 1983, as part of the multi-property nomination "A.M. Kennedy House and Covered Bridges of Rush County." It still stands today, one of four surviving Rush County covered bridges — the county once had a fifth, the Crown Point Bridge, relocated from Milroy to the Lake County Fairgrounds in 1933.