Phillips Covered Bridge

The Phillips Covered Bridge, also called the Arabia Covered Bridge for the surrounding "Little Arabia" community, was built in 1909 by Joseph A. Britton, spanning Rocky Run, also known as Big Pond Creek, about five miles west of Rockville and a mile and a half southwest of Coloma. It is unique among Parke County's surviving covered bridges as the only one built with a Multiple Kingpost Truss rather than the county's ubiquitous Burr Arch design, and at just over 60 feet with its overhangs, it became the shortest county-owned covered bridge in 1957 after a similar nearby span, the Weisner Bridge, washed out in a flood. The area takes its evocative name either from Syrian immigrants who settled nearby or from a term of local derision, and the neighboring Arabia Church cemetery contains many headstones bearing the Phillips family name, for whom the bridge is also known. The bridge's downstream truss has been reinforced over the years with an added iron beam to keep it serviceable for modern light vehicle traffic, and it was reroofed, resided, and repainted in a 1991 restoration costing about $7,000. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places on December 22, 1978, the Phillips Covered Bridge remains open and in active use today.