Covered bridges, which date back to the 19th century in the U.S., were built for the prosaic purpose of protecting wooden bridges from the elements, but they've become a favorite must-see destination for connoisseurs of the historic and the scenic. The 1995 movie, "The Bridges of Madison County," as well as the bestselling novel on which it was based, brought a boost in popularity to covered bridge tours nationwide -- but unlike Iowa, where the story is set, Kansas doesn't have many historic covered bridges of its own. All of its 19th-century bridges are gone, and what bridges remain date back no further than the 1970s.
The Bridges of Southeast Kansas
- Butler County is home to the Riverside Bridge, in El Dorado's Riverview Park. The covered section of this bridge, built in 2004, spans 40 feet across the Walnut River. The entire bridge is 136 feet long, with uncovered sections of 48 feet long at each end. El Dorado also has a covered walkway, built in 2007, which extends about half a mile from the junction of Main Street to the railroad bridge on the south side of Central Avenue. Mound City, in Linn County, has the 18-foot covered Jayhawk Walk Bridge, located in Mound City Historical Park. Although many of the buildings in the park date back to the 19th and early 20th centuries, the bridge itself was built in 1997.
The Bridges of Northeast Kansas
- Northeast Kansas has the highest concentration of covered bridges found in the state -- a grand total of five, including the oldest, Johnson County's Whispering Hills Bridge, built in 1970. Douglas County's Don Jones Bridge, which crosses a tributary of Coal Creek, dates back to 1972, and Jefferson County's Oak Holler Bridge was constructed in 1971. Jefferson County is also home to King's Bridge and the Vernon Robb Bridge, both dating from 2000. The latter has the distinction of being the only two-span covered bridge in the state. Shawnee County's 60-foot Ted Ensley Bridge is the newcomer of the bunch, developed as an addition to Topeka's Ensley Gardens in 2004.
- The One and Only Covered Bridge of Western Kansas
- In western Kansas water is scarce and bridges are few. Many of its early bridges were nothing more than low cement culverts placed in creek beds, and did not even span the creeks from bank to bank. This part of the state can only claim one covered bridge, a small covered walking bridge that spans a section of pathway around Lake Atwood, which is located in the northwest corner of the state about 30 miles north of Colby. The bridge is of wooden construction and is painted red.
The Lost Bridges of Leavenworth County
- Leavenworth County, in northeastern Kansas, was once home to two covered bridges that now live on only in a few old photographs. Not much is known about the Jarbalo Bridge, other than a brief mention in an old pamphlet put out by the Leavenworth County Historical Society and Museum. While the pamphlet's date is unknown, it mentions an article about this bridge that had recently appeared in the "Mail and Breeze," a newspaper that was published between the 1880s and 1930s. A photograph of this bridge in the Kansas Historical Society archives dates from the 1930s. The Springdale covered Bridge, documented in several photos taken by the Historic American Buildings Survey and currently held by the Library of Congress, was at one point the state's sole surviving covered bridge. It was built around 1859 and repaired in 1946, but was struck by lightning and burned in 1958 to disappear for good from the Kansas landscape.
