Swann Covered Bridge

Built in 1933. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1981.

From the record

“The Swann Covered Bridge, also called the Joy Covered Bridge or Swann-Joy Covered Bridge, is a county-owned, wood-and-metal combination style covered bridge that spans the Locust Fork of the Black Warrior River in Blount County, Alabama, United States. It is located on Swann Bridge Road off State Route 79, just west of the town of Cleveland, about 10 miles (16 km) northwest of Oneonta.”
Wikipedia article Swann Covered Bridge, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 5 National Register listings published here for Blount County · listed in 1981 · category: Structure · built in 1933.

Sources: the Wikipedia article · the case file at the National Archives · the National Register database, National Park Service

The listing

What is counted as historic. The nomination lists 1 structure as contributing to the listing.
Address. W of Cleveland, Cleveland, 35079
When was it listed? August 1981
Category. structure
Also known as. Blount County Covered Bridges TR
Census division. Blountsville
When was it built? 1933
National Register reference number. 81000123 - the number the National Park Service assigned this property when it was listed, and the key its nomination file is catalogued under at the National Archives.

Fires near this property

93 since 1994

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 93 fires within 5 miles of Swann Covered Bridge between 1994 and 2019, burning about 527 acres in total. 2 started naturally. 16 were recorded as arson. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Reported cause	Fires
Debris and open burning	35
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	17
Arson/incendiarism	16
Recreation and ceremony	11
Equipment and vehicle use	6
Misuse of fire by a minor	2
Smoking	2
Natural	2
Power generation/transmission/distribution	1
Fireworks	1

The most recent of them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service that recorded it.

Date	Cause	Size	Reported by	Name on the report
7 September 1999	Equipment and vehicle use	26 acres	Alabama Forestry Commission	not named
7 September 1995	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	Alabama Forestry Commission	not named
27 September 2013	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	12 acres	Alabama Forestry Commission	NER-20130927-001
22 September 2016	Debris and open burning	8.0 acres	Alabama Forestry Commission	20160922-1
19 September 2003	Misuse of fire by a minor	1.0 acres	Alabama Forestry Commission	BLOSSOM LANE, AL
18 September 1998	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Alabama Forestry Commission	not named
13 September 2002	Equipment and vehicle use	7.0 acres	Alabama Forestry Commission	not named
7 August 2006	Debris and open burning	1.0 acres	Alabama Forestry Commission	not named

Every fire recorded in Blount County

Mines and quarries near this property

4 within 5 miles

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 4 workings within 5 miles of Swann Covered Bridge: 2 past producers, 1 producer, 1 occurrence. 1 still produces. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction, Stone, Crushed/Broken, Iron. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Site	Commodity	Status
Unnamed Prospect	Iron	Occurrence
Village Springs Quarry	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Past Producer
F & W Co. Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
Nectar Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Producer

Every working recorded in Blount County

Storms near this property

26 since 1994

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Cleveland, the town this property stands in, in 26 storm reports between 1994 and 2023: 16 hail, 7 thunderstorm wind, 2 flash flood, 1 tornado. The reports record 5 injuries. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date opens the federal record of that event.

When	Event	Place named	Harm	What the report says
November 1994	Tornado (F1)	Cleveland	5 hurt, $500,000	A tornado produced a damage path 1.6 miles in length and about 100 yards wide on a northeasterly track. The first damage occurred about 1 miles east of Cleveland in central Blount County. After damaging or destroying several mobile homes and a couple of permanent structures, the tornado crossed U. S. Highway 231 and continued northeast damaging several more structures and another mobile home. All five injuries occurred in mobile homes, three in one and two in another. Injuries to one man required 100 stitches.
August 2007	Thunderstorm Wind	Cleveland	$20,000	Thunderstorm winds caused damage to the doors of the Cleveland Fire Department building. A tree was blown down onto a school bus, at a bus shop in the same area.
March 1996	Hail	Cleveland	$10,000	no account filed
May 1996	Hail	Cleveland	$8,000	no account filed
August 2007	Thunderstorm Wind	Cleveland	$5,000	Severeal trees were blown down and blocked US-231, from County Road 1 to Swann Bridge Road, in Cleveland.
May 2009	Thunderstorm Wind	Cleveland	$2,000	Several trees were blown down on AL-79, near Cleveland.
March 2006	Thunderstorm Wind	Cleveland	$1,000	A few trees blown down.
May 2023	Hail	Cleveland	-	Quarter size hail reported south of Cleveland along Highway 79.
May 2023	Flash Flood	Cleveland	-	High water levels and flooding reported along Highway 79 in Cleveland.
January 2020	Thunderstorm Wind	Cleveland	-	Several trees uprooted and power lines downed in the city of Cleveland.
February 2019	Hail	Cleveland	-	Penny size hail hail covering ground along Highway 231 in the town of Cleveland.
August 2019	Thunderstorm Wind	Cleveland	-	Several trees uprooted along Highway 79 near the town of Cleveland.
July 2015	Thunderstorm Wind	Cleveland	-	Trees uprooted on Swan Bridge Road.
August 2009	Flash Flood	Cleveland	-	Heavy rain caused water to cover the road, which led to the closure of AL-160 at Locust Fork.
February 2003	Hail	Cleveland	-	Penny to quarter size hail was observed in Cleveland. Trees were blown down around the same time in Hayden and in Rosa.
May 2003	Hail	Cleveland	-	Nickel to quarter size hail was reported in and around Cleveland.
September 2000	Hail	Cleveland	-	Dime size hail was reported in Cleveland and in few other locations in central Blount County.
June 1999	Hail	Cleveland	-	Hail up to the size of a quarter fell in Cleveland.
May 1995	Hail	Cleveland	-	Quarter-size hail was reported at Cleveland.
May 1994	Hail	Cleveland	-	State police reported hail from marble- to golf ball-size near Cleveland about six miles northwest of Oneonta.
April 2022	Hail	Cleveland	-	no account filed
July 2012	Hail	Cleveland	-	no account filed
April 2006	Hail	Cleveland	-	no account filed
April 2006	Hail	Cleveland	-	no account filed
April 2006	Hail	Cleveland	-	no account filed
May 1998	Hail	Cleveland	-	no account filed

Every storm recorded in Blount County

Map coverage status

No historic map-sheet match is published for this property yet. That does not mean no map exists. This record needs a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary. Browse the county's mapped places while that work is pending.

Listed places nearby

2 within 8 miles

Other National Register properties close enough to walk or drive between, ordered by distance from this one. Both positions come from the same geocoding pass that matched these properties to their map sheets.

Photograph	Property	Distance	Listed
	Nectar Covered Bridge	3.2 miles	1981
	Easley Covered Bridge	5.1 miles	1981

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 81000123 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Blount County	All 5 listed properties in this county.

Provenance

Listing record. National Park Service National Register of Historic Places, listed-properties dataset, current to 2026-05-22.
Map join. Address geocoded through the United States Census geocoder, then tested against the published boundary of every sheet in the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection.
How this page is made. Listing fields come from federal records; map-sheet coverage is a labelled coordinate-to-boundary calculation, not a source-field claim.
Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.
Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.
Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.