Ashtabula County has nineteen covered bridges, more than any other county in Ohio, and it is the only place in the country that holds both national records at once. Smolen-Gulf is the longest covered bridge in the United States at 613 feet. West Liberty Street in Geneva is the shortest at 18 feet. They sit about twenty minutes apart.

What makes the collection unusual is that most of it is still working infrastructure. These are not preserved relics roped off in a park. Fifteen of the nineteen carry road traffic, you drive through them to get somewhere, and the county engineer maintains them the way he maintains every other bridge. The oldest went up in 1867. The newest was dedicated in 2016. The county has been quietly building new covered bridges for forty years, which almost nowhere else does.

All 19 Covered Bridges

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The Two Records

Smolen-Gulf carries Plymouth Ridge Road 93 feet above the Ashtabula River for 613 feet of Pratt truss. It was engineered by John Smolen, the former county engineer, with architectural design by Timothy Martin, who holds the job now, and it was dedicated on August 26, 2008. It takes full legal load traffic and was built for a hundred-year life. Walk it rather than drive it if you can — at that height, over that span, the scale only registers on foot.

West Liberty Street in Geneva goes the other way: 18 feet, one kingpost, and a scissor-truss roof that makes it feel open rather than enclosed. The steep roof pitch and long overhangs give it a floating look that no other bridge in the county has. There is a toll keeper’s booth beside it, a nod to when crossing a bridge cost you money.

Riverdale Road Covered Bridge over the Grand River in Ashtabula County, Ohio
Riverdale Road Covered Bridge, built 1874, near Rock Creek — a 114-foot Town lattice over the Grand River.

Driving the Bridges

You cannot see all nineteen in a day and enjoy any of them. The county is more than 700 square miles and the bridges are scattered across it. Better to take a corner at a time.

The Ashtabula River Cluster

Four bridges sit along the Ashtabula River north and east of Jefferson, and this is the densest, most rewarding stretch. Smolen-Gulf and Riverview cross at the same place at Indian Trails Park — Riverview is pedestrian-only, 150 feet, dedicated in 2016, and deliberately mirrors the Pratt arch of the big bridge directly above it. Park in the Indian Trails lot and drive down the hill for more parking. From there, Benetka Road (138 feet, Town lattice with arch, around 1900) and Olin (115 feet, 1873) are both short drives. Olin is the only bridge in the county named for a family, and the Olins still own the land beside it.

The Grand River: Geneva and Harpersfield

Harpersfield is the one most visitors see first: 228 feet of two-span Howe truss over the Grand River, built in 1868, on the National Register, and sitting inside a county Metropark with picnic tables. The steel span bolted to the north end is not an afterthought — the 1913 flood tore out the approach and moved the river, and the steel went in to reach the new bank.

Four and a half miles away, Mechanicsville Road is the longest single span in the county at 156 feet and probably the oldest, built in 1867. Its Howe truss carries an arch of fifteen stacked layers of two-by-eight lumber. West Liberty Street is in Geneva itself.

Mill Creek: The Jefferson Four

Four bridges cross Mill Creek within a few miles of the county seat, and they make the clearest case for how the county treats this. Doyle Road is 1868 and 94 feet. South Denmark Road is 1890, 81 feet, and bypassed since 1975, so it is the quiet one. Then Giddings Road (1995, 107 feet) and Netcher Road (1999, 110 feet) are modern bridges built with ODOT timber grants. Netcher is the ornamental one: a Neo-Victorian design with a timber arch and inverted Haupt walls, which you will not find anywhere else.

Conneaut Creek: The East End

Middle Road (1868, 136-foot Howe truss) was reconstructed in 1984 by three volunteers and four college students. Creek Road sits 25 feet above the water and nobody knows when it was built — the construction date is simply lost. Root Road (1868, 114 feet) was jacked up eighteen inches during its 1982 rehabilitation. State Road, over in Kingsville, was the first covered bridge John Smolen Jr. ever designed and built, in 1983, using 97,000 feet of southern pine and oak. Everything that led to Smolen-Gulf started here.

The Southern and Eastern Edges

Windsor Mills, down in the southwest corner over Phelps Creek, is the one photographers go out of their way for. Built in 1867, National Register, and set on cut stone abutments whose center supports are mismatched on purpose — one quarried sandstone, one creek stone. Riverdale Road near Rock Creek stands high over the Grand River, 114 feet, 1874.

Out east in Pierpont, Caine Road was the first Pratt truss covered bridge in Ohio, built in 1986 for the county’s 175th anniversary. Graham Road is its own quarter-acre Metropark with a picnic area; the bridge went up in 1913 from timbers salvaged off an older one, and it carries no traffic at all now. It is the destination rather than the route.

The Covered Bridge Festival

The county’s biggest bridge event runs on a weekend in mid-October at the Ashtabula County Fairgrounds, 127 N. Elm Street in Jefferson. The part worth knowing is that it does not all happen at the fairgrounds. Individual bridges are hosted across the county by local groups — Rotary clubs, fire departments, the humane society, a Scout troop — and each one runs its own thing. Barn quilt painting at South Denmark. Lenape dancing and drumming at Caine Road. Baked goods at Root Road. It turns the whole county into the venue for two days, which is a better idea than most festivals have. Check coveredbridgefestival.org for the current year’s dates and bridge hosts.

Interior of the Riverdale Road Covered Bridge showing its 1874 Town lattice trusses
Inside Riverdale Road: the crossed Town lattice that carries the span.

Practical Notes

Most of these are open year round and most are on gravel township roads. A few things worth knowing before you go:

Four do not carry vehicles — Riverview and Graham Road are pedestrian, South Denmark was bypassed in 1975, and clearances elsewhere are low enough that anything tall should check first. Phone signal is unreliable in the river valleys, so download your map before you leave pavement. Autumn is the obvious season and mid-October is the peak, but the bridges photograph well in snow and you will have them to yourself in February.

Find More in Ashtabula County

The bridges run through the middle of Geneva wine country, past the farms around Jefferson, and out to Conneaut on the lake. Browse the full covered bridges listings, or find somewhere to eat and stay along the way in the Ashtabula County business directory.