Goddard Bridge
Fleming County, at Goddard. Built in the early 19th century on Ithiel Town's 1820 lattice design, 63 ft. long. One of only three Kentucky covered bridges still open to vehicle traffic.
The Goddard Bridge, also known as the White Bridge, crosses Sand Lick Creek just off Kentucky Route 32 in the small community of Goddard, with the Pea Ridge Mountains and an old country church as a backdrop. Its exact construction date has never been pinned down, but it was built on the lattice-truss design Ithiel Town patented in 1820 — a crisscrossing lattice of diagonal planks pinned with wooden trunnels — and it's the only surviving example of Town's design left standing anywhere in Kentucky. The builder is recorded as Joseph Goddard, whose name the bridge and its community both carry.
Originally sited about a mile south of its current spot, the bridge was moved to its present location in 1933 when Highway 32 was rebuilt, and steel braces sunk into the creek bank near the abutments were added for extra support. It's been restored twice since, in 1968 and again in 2005-2006, with the more recent Kentucky Transportation Cabinet project strengthening the structure while keeping as much original material as possible. Unlike most of Kentucky's surviving covered bridges, Goddard is still doing its original job: it remains open to traffic under 4 tons, one of only three covered bridges left in the state that still carry vehicles. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1975.
