Foxcatcher Farm Covered Bridge

Foxcatcher Farm Covered Bridge crosses Big Elk Creek in what is now the Fair Hill Natural Resources Management Area, though it started out under a more workmanlike name: Strahorn's Mill Bridge, built in 1860 by Ferdinand Wood to serve a local gristmill. The bridge's fortunes changed in 1927, when financier William du Pont Jr. bought up the mill property along with the surrounding land to build his Foxcatcher Farm estate, a name that would later attach itself to both the bridge and, notoriously, to his family's wrestling program decades later. Du Pont raised cattle, raced thoroughbreds, and hunted fox across the estate, and for decades the bridge sat on private land, out of reach of the covered-bridge enthusiasts who might otherwise have sought it out.

The State of Maryland purchased the du Pont estate in 1975 and eventually opened it to the public as the Fair Hill Natural Resources Management Area, restoring public access to the bridge along with thousands of acres of trails. It was substantially reconstructed in 1992 and combines a multiple kingpost frame with a supplementary arch. In 1994, the American Society of Civil Engineers' Maryland section designated it a Historic Civil Engineering Landmark. Today it's open only to hikers, cyclists, and horseback riders — no vehicles — fitting for a bridge that spent most of its working life on a estate built for riding to hounds.