Photograph of Melcher Covered Bridge — Photograph by Jacob Hilt, CC BY-SA 4.0. Via Wikimedia Commons.

Melcher Bridge

Built in 1896. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978.

From the record

“The Melcher Covered Bridge, also known as the "Klondyke Covered Bridge", "Marion Covered Bridge", or the "Leatherwood Covered Bridge" crosses Leatherwood Creek east of Montezuma, Indiana, and is a single-span Burr Arch Truss covered bridge structure that was built by Joseph J.”
Wikipedia article Melcher Covered Bridge, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 47 National Register listings published here for Parke County · listed in 1978 · category: Structure · built in 1896.

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. E of Montezuma, Montezuma, 47862
When was it listed? December 1978
Category. structure
Also known as. Parke County Covered Bridges TR
Township. Reserve township
When was it built? 1896
National Register reference number. 78000402 - 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.

Mines and quarries near this property

7 within 5 miles

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 7 workings within 5 miles of Melcher Bridge: 4 producers, 2 past producers, 1 plant. 5 still produce. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction, Clay, Stone, Clay. 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
Dee Clay Pit	Stone, Clay	Producer
Dana Clay Pit	Clay	Past Producer
Dee Clay Products Company, Inc.	Clay	Producer
Montezuma Gravel	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Producer
Montezuma Shale Plant	Clay	Plant
Parke County Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
W.C. Hargis Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Producer

Every working recorded in Parke County

Storms near this property

35 since 1994

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Montezuma, the town this property stands in, in 35 storm reports between 1994 and 2025: 24 flood, 7 thunderstorm wind, 3 hail, 1 flash flood. No death or injury is recorded in these reports. 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
March 2006	Flood	Montezuma	$100,000	no account filed
July 2004	Thunderstorm Wind	Montezuma	$25,000	no account filed
January 2008	Flood	Montezuma	$20,000	Flooding occurred along the Wabash River in Parke County, including near Montezuma, due to heavy rain and snow melt.
February 2008	Flood	Montezuma	$15,000	Flooding occurred along the Wabash River in Parke County, including near Montezuma, due to heavy rain and snow melt.
March 2008	Flood	Montezuma	$15,000	Flooding occurred along the Wabash River in Parke County, including near Montezuma, due to heavy rain and snow melt. Flooding continued into April until the morning of April 9th at 00:30.
February 2011	Thunderstorm Wind	Montezuma	$10,000	A farmer's large sprinkler system was blown over due to damaging thunderstorm wind gusts.
February 2007	Flood	Montezuma	$10,000	The Wabash River flooded in Parke County. The river remained in flood into March. Crests were over 7 feet above flood stage.
March 2007	Flood	Montezuma	$10,000	The Wabash River in Parke County remained above flood stage from February through all of March. Crests were 10 feet above flood stage.
January 2007	Flood	Montezuma	$10,000	The Wabash River in Parke County remained high through most of January. Crests were as high as 12 feet above flood stage.
April 2008	Flood	Montezuma	$5,000	Flooding occurred along the Wabash River, including near Montezuma, due to heavy rain.
May 2008	Flood	Montezuma	$5,000	Flooding occurred along the Wabash River in Parke County, including near Montezuma, due to heavy rain. Flooding continued until June 16th at 0720.
May 2008	Flood	Montezuma	$5,000	Flooding occurred along the Wabash River in Parke County, including near Montezuma, due to heavy rain.
April 2007	Flood	Montezuma	$5,000	Flooding returned to the Wabash River in Parke County during late April. The crest reached two and a half feet above flood stage.
December 2006	Flood	Montezuma	$5,000	The Wabash River flooded in Parke County. Water remained high into January.
December 2006	Flood	Montezuma	$5,000	The Wabash River flooded in Parke County. The river crested at over six feet above flood stage.
June 2025	Thunderstorm Wind	Montezuma	$3,000	Thunderstorm wind gusts downed a 10 to 15-inch diameter tree limb onto house.
May 2009	Flood	Montezuma	$1,000	Extensive flooding occurred along the Wabash River near Lyford, Indiana. The river crested 7.3 feet above flood stage on May 19th at a reading of 25.3 feet. Damage costs are grossly estimated.
January 2008	Flood	Montezuma	$1,000	Flooding occurred along the Wabash River in Parke County, including near Montezuma, due to heavy rain and snow melt. This flooding began on December 22nd and continued into January.
April 2007	Flood	Montezuma	$1,000	Flooding continued from February and March on the Wabash River in Parke County. The crest reached seven feet above flood stage.
November 2007	Flood	Montezuma	$1,000	Lowland flooding occurred along the Wabash River in Parke County due to heavy rain.
December 2007	Flood	Montezuma	$500	Flooding occurred along the Wabash River in Parke County, including near Montezuma, due to heavy rain.
December 2007	Flood	Montezuma	$500	Flooding occurred along the Wabash River in Parke County, including near Montezuma, due to heavy rain and snow melt. Flooding continued until January second.
July 2015	Thunderstorm Wind	Montezuma	-	An estimated 60 mph thunderstorm wind gust was observed in this location.
May 2011	Thunderstorm Wind	Montezuma	-	A 65 mph thunderstorm wind gust was observed in this location. A rotating wall cloud was also reported.
March 2009	Flood	Montezuma	-	Extensive flooding of agricultural land occurred along the Wabash River in Parke County in and near Montezuma, IN. The river crested 10.69 feet above flood stage at the Montezuma river gauge on March 14th, a reading of 24.69 feet. The flooding also affected some roads and possibly flooded basements.
March 2009	Flood	Montezuma	-	Very minor flooding occurred along the Wabash River in Parke County, including in and near Montezuma, due to heavy rain. The river crest was just under one half foot above flood stage.
April 2008	Flood	Montezuma	-	Flooding occurred along the Wabash River in Parke County, including near Montezuma, due to heavy rain and snow melt. This flooding is a continuation from flooding that began on March 3rd at 1151. March flood damage is estimated at fifteen thousand dollars.
June 2008	Thunderstorm Wind	Montezuma	-	Large tree limbs were reported down due to damaging thunderstorm winds.
June 2008	Flood	Montezuma	-	This flooding is a continuation of flooding that began on May 31st at 0933 EST. The flooding occurred along the Wabash River in Parke County, including near Montezuma, due to heavy rain. Flood damage estimates from May include five-thousand dollars in both crop and property damage.
July 2008	Flood	Montezuma	-	Excessive rainfall along the Wabash River caused flooding in Vermillion county, including near Montezuma.
April 1994	Thunderstorm Wind	Montezuma	-	Several trees and a large limb were blown down.
May 2004	Hail	Montezuma	-	no account filed
June 2004	Hail	Montezuma	-	no account filed
June 2004	Flash Flood	Montezuma	-	no account filed
May 2001	Hail	Montezuma	-	no account filed

Every storm recorded in Parke 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

6 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.

Property	Distance	Listed
Sim Smith Bridge	1.1 miles	1978
Phillips Bridge	1.3 miles	1978
Leatherwood Station Bridge	2.6 miles	1978
Mecca Bridge	4.2 miles	1978
Wabash Township Graded School	4.4 miles	1987
West Union Bridge	4.6 miles

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 78000402 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Parke County	All 47 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.
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.