Rex's Covered Bridge

About

Rex's Covered Bridge carries Jordan Road over Jordan Creek south of Schnecksville, west of Orefield, in North Whitehall Township, Lehigh County. It is a Burr truss built in 1858. It is open to vehicles and is owned by Lehigh County.

History

The sources reviewed do not name the builder. The bridge is believed to be named for the Rex family, local landowners. Discover Lehigh Valley notes that it stands near Kern's Dam and the former Kern's Mill but found no evidence of a mill beside the bridge itself. The original stone wing walls were later capped with cement and painted white. The bridge was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on December 1, 1980, as part of the Covered Bridges of the Delaware River Watershed nomination.

Design

The Burr truss pairs timber arches with a multiple kingpost truss. Rex's has narrow horizontal siding and a gable roof, and coveredbridges.net gives a deck width of about 17 ft. Sources disagree on the length: Discover Lehigh Valley gives 116 ft, coveredbridges.net gives 138 ft overall with a 116 ft main span, and Wikipedia, following the National Register data, gives 150 ft.

Visiting

The bridge is on Jordan Road, reached by Kernsville Road from PA 309 in Orefield. Discover Lehigh Valley lists posted limits of 9 ft 6 in clearance and 4 tons. Unlike the county's other covered bridges, it is not in a park.

Sources: Rex Covered Bridge (Wikipedia), Rex Covered Bridge (coveredbridges.net), Covered Bridges of Lehigh Valley (Discover Lehigh Valley)

Photo: Lehigh Valley, PA, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.