West Cornwall Covered Bridge
Litchfield County, West Cornwall. Built 1864, 173 ft. long. Also called the Hart Covered Bridge, one of only two covered bridges left in Connecticut still open to vehicle traffic.
The West Cornwall Covered Bridge, sometimes still called the Hart Bridge after an early settler of the village, carries the Sharon-Goshen Turnpike — now Connecticut Route 128 — over the Housatonic River. Records suggest a bridge has stood at this crossing since as early as 1762. A flood destroyed an earlier span in 1837, its 1841 replacement (possibly overseen by Ithiel Town) was lost in turn, and the current bridge went up around 1864, according to research by the Cornwall Historical Society.
Built of native oak and red spruce secured with wooden treenails, the bridge runs 172 to 173 feet on a Town lattice truss across two spans, reusing the central pier from its predecessor even though a Town lattice can typically manage the distance in one. A secondary queen-post truss was added later, possibly in 1887, for extra strength. At 15 feet wide, it still carries a single lane of vehicle traffic today, one of only two covered bridges left in Connecticut doing that job — a rare working survivor from an era when timber trusses were the practical way to get a turnpike across a river.
