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Documenting North America's past & present covered bridges

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Ramp Creek or Brown County State Park, Brown County

If you find errors in the data please contact Bill Caswell.

If you would like to provide information on covered bridges that no longer exist from your state, or adopt a state to work on, we would certainly welcome your assistance. Please contact Trish Kane for more information.

Inventory Number: IN/14-07-02
County: Brown County
Township: Washington
Town/Village:
Bridge Name: Ramp Creek or Brown County State Park
Crosses: North Fork Salt Creek
Truss type: Burr
Spans: 1
Length: 100' floor, 110' roofline
Roadway Width:
Built: 1838 (M1932)
Builder: Henry Wolf
When Lost: standing
Cause:
Latitude: N39 11.728
Longitude: W086 12.990
See a map of the area
Topographic map of the area
Directions: 1.7 miles east of jct IN46/135 in Nashville on IN46/135, then 0.1 miles right into the north entrance of Brown County State Park to the bridge. East-southeast of Nashville.

Ramp Creek Bridge, Washington, Brown County, IN Built 1838
Richard Donovan / Trish Kane Collection

Ramp Creek Bridge, Washington, Brown County, IN Built 1838
© Lisa Plamondon

Ramp Creek or Brown County State Park Bridge, Washington, Brown County, IN Built 1838 (M1932)
Bill & Jenn Caswell Photo, September 27, 2015

Comments:
20-9N-3E. 10-panel truss. This bridge is located at the north entrance into Brown County State Park where it is subject to heavy traffic daily even though it is the oldest covered bridge still standing in Indiana as well as the only double-barrel covered bridge in the state. Both lanes are 11 feet wide and 12 feet high. Built in 1838 by Henry Wolf, with Chillion Johnson as foreman, the bridge was financed by the same internal improvement act of 1836 that began canal construction in Indiana. The bridge was moved to its present setting in 1932 from Putnam County, where it crossed Ramp Creek just south of Fincastle on what was known as the New Albany-Lafayette or Jeffersonville-Crawfordsville Turnpike, which later became State Road 43 and later still became US 231. This information is credited to Sara Walthery.

Sources:
Ketcham, Bryan E.. Covered Bridges on the Byways of Indiana, 1949, page 48
Gould, George E.. Indiana's Covered Bridges Thru the Years, 1977
County History Preservation Society (no longer accessible). Covered Bridges of Indiana, 2002, http://www.countyhistory.com/coveredbridge/brown2.htm
Travis, Dale. 'Indiana Covered Bridges List', updated to 11 Feb 2005, http://www.dalejtravis.com/cblist/cbin.htm (8 Mar 2005)
National Society for the Preservation of Covered Bridges. World Guide to Covered Bridges, 2021, page 14

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