Harris Bridge

The Harris Bridge crosses the Marys River near the small community of Wren outside Philomath, named for George Harris, an early pioneer settler whose family homesteaded along the river at this crossing. Its exact build year is a genuine, unresolved dispute: Wikipedia's statewide covered bridge list and local lore give 1929, while official Benton County and National Register paperwork lists 1936, crediting builder H.W. Fiedler with replacing an earlier bridge on the same site. The 75-foot Howe truss span retains a rounded portal design, board-and-batten siding, narrow "daylighting" windows below the roofline, and longitudinal deck planking, a plank orientation less common among Oregon's surviving covered bridges. Sitting in the heart of Benton County wine country, the bridge has become a favorite backroad stop on Willamette Valley wine-touring routes and one of the most-photographed covered bridges in the region. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places on November 29, 1979 as part of the Oregon Covered Bridges Multiple Property Submission, the Harris Bridge remains open to light vehicular and pedestrian traffic today, reached via a partially gravel approach road.