Langley Covered Bridge

Langley Covered Bridge is the longest wooden covered bridge left standing in Michigan, a 282-foot, three-span crossing of the St. Joseph River in Lockport Township, three miles north of Centreville. It was built in 1887 by Parkville builder Pierce Bodmer for about $3,000, jointly commissioned by Lockport and Nottawa townships after a swollen St. Joseph River swept away an earlier bridge roughly two blocks from the current site that same year. Bodmer built it on a Howe truss using the best white pine he could source for the frame timbers.

The bridge is named for Thomas W. Langley and his family, among the pioneers who helped establish the village of Centreville in the mid-1800s. In 1910, the construction of the Sturgis Dam raised water levels on the St. Joseph River enough that the entire bridge had to be jacked up eight feet to keep it clear of the new pool. It's listed on both the Michigan Historic Register and the National Register of Historic Places, and remains open to vehicle traffic today — a working 19th-century bridge that's outlasted the flood that necessitated it and the dam that nearly outgrew it.