Old Salem Covered Bridge

The Old Salem Covered Bridge is a timber Burr arch-truss bridge (named for early 19th Century American bridge builder Theodore Burr) that compliments the characteristics of Old Salem’s Moravian heritage. Constructed in 1998 as a project by NCDOT, the Old Salem Pedestrian Bridge provides a pedestrian overpass over the Old Salem Bypass (Highway 52) at Old Salem, the site of North Carolina’s first Moravian community. Old Salem, the restored 18th Century Moravian Museum Village, is a historic district that is included in the National Register of Historic Places as a National Historic Landmark.

The structure spans approximately 120′ over Old Salem Bypass with 17′ vertical clearance over the roadway and a 12′ walkway. The bridge is framed with two massive Burr-arch trusses, 15′-10″ in height with a 5′ rise. The arches spring from two cast-in-place concrete, stone-faced abutments. The western landing of the bridge has stairs and a wheelchair ramp, meeting the Americans with Disabilities Act requirements, and providing access to the bridge from the strollway. East of Old Salem bypass, the structure connects to an elevated concrete walkway leading to the stairwell and ramp, which connects to Main Street.

Designed by DCF Engineering of Carey, North Carolina, as a pedestrian walkway that connects the restored Moravian village of Old Salem to a new visitors center, this is the first covered bridge erected in North Carolina in nearly a century. Blue Ridge Timberwrights used more than 600 salvaged southern yellow pine timbers in the structure.

Each bridge truss was built on the flat and raised upright with a pair of cranes; deck and roof timbers tied the structure together. House Movers slowly towed the bridge over temporary cribbing into position with a pair of semitrailer trucks, one pulling and one acting as a brake. A day of hauling brought the bridge into position; it took two more days to anchor the new span to its abutments and to remove the temporary bridge.