Milo Academy Covered Bridge

The Milo Academy Covered Bridge carries a single lane of traffic over the South Umpqua River near the Seventh-day Adventist Milo Adventist Academy, close to the small community of Milo. It is Oregon's only steel-truss bridge dressed in a wooden covered-bridge housing, the wooden covering serving no structural purpose whatsoever, existing purely for nostalgic and aesthetic reasons. The site originally held a wooden covered bridge built in 1920, but as the academy's agriculture program grew, its heavier farm equipment outstripped what the aging wooden structure could safely carry. A bare steel-truss replacement went up in 1962, but the change left the local community feeling it had lost a piece of its identity, so the wooden siding and roofing salvaged from the old bridge were adapted onto the new steel span to preserve its familiar covered-bridge look. It is one of only two Oregon covered bridges not supported by a timber truss, and it remains privately owned and maintained by the academy rather than a public road agency, a rarity among the state's covered bridges. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places on November 29, 1979 as part of the Oregon Covered Bridges Multiple Property Submission, the Milo Academy Bridge remains open to vehicle traffic today.