Lancaster Covered Bridge
Carroll County, Clay Township, near Owasco. Built 1872, 133 ft. long. Howe truss over Wildcat Creek; nearly destroyed by a 2003 flood, fully restored, and still open to vehicle traffic.
Lancaster Covered Bridge, also known as the Beard Covered Bridge, was built in 1872 by the Wheelock Bridge Company across the North Fork of Wildcat Creek, taking its name from the nearby village of New Lancaster. It carried a plank road route running south from Delphi through Prince William to the village of Owasco, and its Howe truss rests on a cast-iron substructure patented by Alpheus Wheelock in 1870 — a design shared with only one other Indiana bridge. Rehabilitation work in 1972 and 1981 kept the span open to traffic through the 20th century. The bridge came close to being lost during severe flooding in 2003, when water crested 18 inches above the floorboards; crews piled gravel across the deck to hold it in place until floodwaters receded. Carroll County commissioners subsequently approved the bridge's largest rehabilitation to date, replacing upper and lower chords and stabilizing the historic iron abutments; work began in 2005 and the bridge reopened to traffic on January 30, 2007. Lancaster Bridge is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and remains one of only two surviving covered bridges in Carroll County, alongside Adams Mill, and continues to carry vehicle traffic today.
