Zehnder's Holz-Brücke

Zehnder's Holz-Brücke — German for "wooden bridge" — crosses the Cass River in the Bavarian-themed tourist town of Frankenmuth, and at 239 feet it's the largest covered bridge in Michigan. It exists because of a parking problem: as crowds at the Bavarian Inn Restaurant grew through the 1970s, owner William "Tiny" Zehnder needed a way to connect the restaurant to overflow parking across the river. In 1977, Zehnder read a newspaper profile of Milton Graton, dubbed "The Last of the Covered Bridge Builders," and brought the New Hampshire bridgewright out to Frankenmuth to build one from scratch.

Construction began in 1979 and the finished bridge — a two-lane, 230-ton structure built almost entirely of Douglas fir on a Town lattice truss, clad in cedar shingles, with covered pedestrian walkways running along both sides — was dedicated in September 1980 at a cost of about $1.1 million. It remains open to vehicle traffic today, one of only four covered bridges left in Michigan still doing that job, and a modern-built bridge that nonetheless used entirely traditional timber-frame construction under the guidance of one of the last people in the country who still knew how to build one properly.