Stevenson Road Covered Bridge
Xenia Township, Greene County, Ohio
Marker Inscription
Built in 1877, the 95-foot Stevenson Road Covered Bridge carried traffic until 2003. One of the few remaining Smith truss bridges in the United States, it was built by the Smith Bridge Company, founded by bridge designer Robert W. Smith.
Erected by Ohio History Connection
The Story
When this bridge went up in 1877, the covered wooden span was still the workhorse of rural American roads, its roof and siding shielding the timber trusses from the weather that would otherwise rot them within a decade. Its builder, the Smith Bridge Company of Toledo, Ohio, was founded by Robert W. Smith, who patented a distinctive truss design that let his firm ship prefabricated bridges by rail across the country. The Stevenson Road bridge carried Greene County traffic for well over a century before finally retiring in 2003, and it survives today as one of the comparatively few Smith truss spans still standing.
Why it matters
It preserves a rare example of a patented American truss system from the era when Gilded Age engineering firms were industrializing bridge-building and knitting the countryside together with reliable all-weather crossings.
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Related people
- · Robert W. Smith
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