Oquawka Wagon Bridge
Henderson County, near Oquawka. Built 1866, 106 ft. long. Also called the Allaman-Eames Bridge, salvaged from a 1982 flood and rebuilt by local volunteers.
The Oquawka Wagon Bridge — also known as the Allaman or Eames Bridge — crosses Henderson Creek about three miles south of Oquawka in Henderson County. It was built in 1866 by Jacob Allaman, a Pennsylvania-born farmer who had already built three covered bridges in his home state before settling in Illinois, replacing an earlier crossing known as the Eames Bridge. Allaman's Burr arch-truss span cost $2,125 to build, with stone abutments running an additional $2.40 per perch, and it carried horse-drawn wagon traffic between Oquawka and Gladstone for nearly seventy years.
The road was relocated in 1935, retiring the bridge from vehicle service, and by 1936 the state had turned the site into a pedestrian bridge and picnic area. Disaster struck in July 1982, when floodwater tore the bridge from its abutments entirely, sending it downstream until it lodged against the IL-164 bridge. Rather than let it go, local citizens and Illinois Department of Transportation crews salvaged the structure from the creek, and the Henderson County Historical Society spearheaded a rebuilding campaign that returned the covered bridge to its site in 1984. Added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1975, it remains the centerpiece of a roadside park along Illinois Route 164.
