Rob Roy Covered Bridge
Fountain County, Shawnee Township, near Rob Roy/Attica. Built 1860, 120 ft. long. The only Fountain County covered bridge still open to vehicle traffic.
The Rob Roy Covered Bridge is a single-span, 120-foot Howe truss structure built in 1860 to carry a county road (now CR 800N) across Big Shawnee Creek, just west of US 41 in the unincorporated community of Rob Roy, Shawnee Township, south of Attica. The community and bridge take their name from Robert Roy MacGregor, the Scottish folk hero, an homage chosen by early settler John I. Foster, who also founded a Methodist church there. The bridge was refurbished in 1925 and, unlike Fountain County's other two covered spans, continued carrying vehicle traffic for decades. Structural deterioration forced county officials to close it to traffic in 2014. Local residents organized as the Friends of Rob Roy Covered Bridge and, over roughly three years, raised the funds needed to fully restore the span; repairs were completed and a grand reopening and ribbon-cutting ceremony, led by Fountain County Commissioner Craig Stalter, was held July 2, 2017, with the bridge cleared for vehicles shortly after county inspection. In recognition of its engineering and historical significance, the bridge was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on May 24, 2021, together with the county's Cades Mill and Wallace bridges. It remains an active, publicly maintained rural crossing.
