Humpback Covered Bridge
Alleghany County, near Covington. Built 1857, 109 ft. long. The only arched covered bridge remaining in the United States, a National Historic Landmark.
Built in 1857 to carry the James River and Kanawha Turnpike over Dunlap Creek, the Humpback Covered Bridge replaced three earlier uncovered bridges at the same crossing, each destroyed by flood or wear. Its builders, Mr. Venable of Lewisburg and his assistant Thomas Kincaid, gave it a radically cambered multiple kingpost truss — the deck, upper chord, and lower chord all arch upward from the abutments, rising about 4 feet higher in the center than at either end. It is the only surviving example of this design in the country, hand-hewn from white oak and hickory and pinned together with honey locust wood pegs.
The bridge carried turnpike traffic until 1929, when a steel truss span opened just to the north for what became U.S. Route 60. Left idle, it was sometimes used to store hay bales through the early 1950s until the Covington Business and Professional Women's Club and local Chamber of Commerce raised funds to preserve it, matched by the Virginia Highway Department in 1953. A five-acre wayside park opened around it the following year.
The Humpback Bridge was added to the National Register of Historic Places on October 1, 1969, and was designated a National Historic Landmark in 2012 — one of the highest honors a historic structure can receive, reflecting its status as a one-of-a-kind piece of American bridge engineering. It sits about 3 miles west of Covington, just off U.S. 60 near Rumsey Road, with parking, restrooms, and a picnic area at Dunlap Creek.
