Newport Covered Bridge

Newport Covered Bridge, also known as the Morehead Covered Bridge and County Bridge No. 67, was built in 1885 by Joseph J. Daniels, whose $6,800 bid for a Burr Arch timber span won out over 23 competing sealed bids. The single-span, 16-foot-wide bridge crosses the Little Vermilion River on County Road 50N just northwest of Newport, the Vermillion County seat, in Vermillion Township. Its clear span measures 180 feet, with roughly 15 feet of covered overhang at each end bringing the bridge's total covered length to about 210 feet, making it one of the longest Burr Arch bridges surviving in Indiana. Since 1885 the bridge has remained in continuous service on a working agricultural road, connecting Newport with the communities of Dana and Quaker and the farmland between them — one of the few Indiana covered bridges still carrying everyday vehicle traffic rather than serving purely as a museum piece. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on June 10, 1994 (NRHP reference #94000589). It remains standing at its original crossing today, one of the best-preserved and most actively used historic covered bridges in Vermillion County.