The Bunker Hill Covered Bridge is one of two covered bridge

Covered bridge

A covered bridge is a bridge with enclosed sides and a roof, often accommodating only a single lane of traffic. Most covered bridges are wooden; some newer ones are concrete or metal with glass sides...

s left in North Carolina

North Carolina

North Carolina is a state located in the southeastern United States. The state borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south, Tennessee to the west and Virginia to the north. North Carolina contains 100 counties. Its capital is Raleigh, and its largest city is Charlotte...

, (the other being the Pisgah Covered Bridge

Pisgah covered bridge

Pisgah Covered Bridge is a wooden covered bridge that spans the west fork of the Little River in Randolph County, North Carolina. It is one of two remaining original historic covered bridges in the state, and is designated as a both a local and federal historic landmark.-History:The bridge was...

 in Randolph county), and is possibly the last wooden bridge

Wooden bridge

A wooden bridge is a bridge that uses wood as a building medium. One of the first forms of bridges, the wooden bridge has been used since ancient times, among them the Holzbrücke Rapperswil-Hurden crossing upper Lake Zürich in Switzerland. The prehistoric timber piles discovered to the west of the...

 in the United States with Haupt

Herman Haupt

Herman Haupt was an American civil engineer and railroad construction engineer and executive. As a Union Army General in the American Civil War, he revolutionized military transportation in the United States and was one of the unsung heroes of the war.-Early life:Haupt, whose first name was...

 truss

Truss

In architecture and structural engineering, a truss is a structure comprising one or more triangular units constructed with straight members whose ends are connected at joints referred to as nodes. External forces and reactions to those forces are considered to act only at the nodes and result in...

 construction. It was built in 1895 by Andy L. Ramsour in Claremont, North Carolina

Claremont, North Carolina

Claremont is a city in Catawba County, North Carolina, United States. The population was 1,355 at the 2010 census. It is part of the Hickory–Lenoir–Morganton Metropolitan Statistical Area.-Geography:...

, and crosses over Lyle creek. The bridge is a National Civil Engineering Landmark and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places

National Register of Historic Places

The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...

.

History and Design

The project to build the bridge was started in 1894 when Catawba County Commissioners requested nearby owners of the Bunker Hill Farm to build and maintain a bridge that would cross Lyle Creek on the old Island Ford Road(a former Native American trail). According to local archives, Ramsour found the Haupt Truss design in a book. Since the bridge was originally constructed as an open span, it's 91 ft. roof wasn't added until 1900, and in 1921, its original wooden shingle roof was replaced with a tin roof. The bridge was owned by the Bolick family until 1985 when they donated it to the Catawba County Historical Association, who restored it in 1994.