Hayden Bridge

Hayden Bridge spans the Alsea River about two miles west of Alsea, Oregon, and stands as one of only seven covered bridges in the state that survived from before 1920. The 91-foot Howe truss structure was built in 1918, using a design that pairs diagonal wooden compression members with vertical iron tension rods — a technique that proved especially suited to the timber-rich Pacific Northwest. Neighboring crossings like the Mill Creek Bridge, which once served the same river corridor, have long since been lost; Hayden Bridge endured and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1979. Today it sits quietly in a rural river landscape, a well-preserved example of early twentieth-century vernacular engineering.