White Covered Bridge

About

The White Covered Bridge crosses Whiteley Creek on Roberts Run Road west of Garards Fort in Greene Township, Greene County. It is a queenpost truss bridge usually dated 1919 and the longest covered bridge in the county. Coveredbridges.net and Uncovering PA give its length as 70 ft, while the National Register record gives 66.5 ft. Greene County owns and maintains it, and it carries a 10 ton load limit.

History

Before the bridge was built, a foot log crossed the creek just west of the site and wagons had to ford the stream. The 1919 date is the one usually given, but a 1990 state survey gave 1900, and a local resident born in 1911 recalled the bridge being built when he was a boy. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on June 22, 1979, as part of the Covered Bridges of Washington and Greene Counties group.

Design

A queenpost truss uses two vertical posts joined at the top by a horizontal beam. White has white vertical tongue and groove siding on the sides and portals, a steel roof, lengthwise planks laid over diagonal planking in the wheel tracks, and cut stone and mortar wingwalls. Its vertical clearance of 17 ft 6 in is unusually high for a covered bridge.

Visiting

The bridge is on Roberts Run Road a few miles from Interstate 79 and is open to traffic. It is a site of the Washington and Greene Counties Covered Bridge Festival, held the third weekend of September.

Sources: White Covered Bridge (Wikipedia), White Covered Bridge (coveredbridges.net), Covered Bridges of Greene County (Uncovering PA)

Photo: Kathy from Southwest Pennsylvania, USA, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.