Newport Covered Bridge

Built in 1885. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1994.

From the record

“Newport Covered Bridge, also known as the Morehead Covered Bridge and County Bridge No. 67, is a historic Burr Arch Truss covered bridge located in Vermillion Township, Vermillion County, Indiana. It was built in 1885, and is a single span covered timber bridge.”
Wikipedia article Newport Covered Bridge, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 9 National Register listings published here for Vermillion County · listed in 1994 · category: Structure · built in 1885.

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. Co. Rd. 50N over Little Vermillion R., Newport, 47854
When was it listed? June 1994
Category. structure
Township. Vermillion township
When was it built? 1885
National Register reference number. 94000589 - 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.

The ground it stands on

8,680 words

The chapter on Vermillion Township in Biographical and Historical Record of Vermillion County, Indiana : Containing Portraits of All the Presidents of the United States from Washington to Cleveland, with Accompanying Biographies of Each; a Condensed History of the State of Indiana; Portraits and Biographies of Some of the Prominent Men of the State; Engravings of Prominent Citizens in Vermillion County, with Personal Histories of Many of the Leading Families, and a Concise History of the County and Its Villages, published 1888 names Newport. This is what it says, exactly as the scans read.

Mr. Dillow came some time prior to 1810, from Virginia. Abel Sexton, still one of the most prominent citizens of Newport, was born in New York in 1820, and settled in tliis county in 1813. (See sketch.) Other prominent citizens of Vermillion Township, who either settled here or were born here in pioneer times, are Alvah Arrasmith, living; Tiionias G. Arrasmith, wagon-maker at Newport, now in Terre Haute; Samuel and G. W. Clark, living; David Fry, living; James Kaufman, who now lives in Dana; Leonard Sanders, deceased; his sons, Samuel, Daniel and William, are living; John Rice, who died in 1880, at the age of seventy years; his son, William Z., is sketched in the biographical department of this work: Daniel E. Jones, who became a wealthy citizen of Chicago and died there; Major John Gardner, IFenry Betson, etc.

Passage source: Biographical and Historical Record of Vermillion County, Indiana : Containing Portraits of All the Presidents of the United States from Washington to Cleveland, with Accompanying Biographies of Each; a Condensed History of the State of Indiana; Portraits and Biographies of Some of the Prominent Men of the State; Engravings of Prominent Citizens in Vermillion County, with Personal Histories of Many of the Leading Families, and a Concise History of the County and Its Villages, published 1888.

The above are the initials of one of tlie most prominent citizens of Vermillion County; namely, Oliver P. Davis, and have also become the name of the 1,300 acre farm which he owns tliree to four miles below Newport, and of the railroad station at that point, when it is generally spelled Opedee.

Machine-read from a century-old scan, so expect the errors a machine makes: misspelled names, dropped words, stray characters.

Read the whole chapter on Vermillion Township - 8,680 words on its settlement, mills, schools and churches.

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 Newport Covered Bridge: 2 producers, 2 past producers. 2 still produce. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction, 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
Cayuga Shale Pit	Clay	Producer
Cayuga Sand and Gravel Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
Hawkins Gravel	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Producer
Summit Grove Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer

Every working recorded in Vermillion County

Storms near this property

20 since 1996

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Newport, the town this property stands in, in 20 storm reports between 1996 and 2022: 10 thunderstorm wind, 5 flood, 3 hail, 2 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
May 2002	Flash Flood	Newport	$50,000	no account filed
October 1996	Thunderstorm Wind	Newport	$25,000	no account filed
August 2022	Thunderstorm Wind	Newport	$10,000	Trees downed by thunderstorm wind gusts at residence. A few larger branches downed on vehicles.
February 2008	Flash Flood	Newport	$10,000	Flash flooding occurred across northern portions of Vermillion County, especially by the Vermillion River. Sandbags were handed out and a campground was evacuated.
May 2008	Thunderstorm Wind	Newport	$8,000	A covered bridge sustained damage due to thunderstorm winds.
August 2013	Thunderstorm Wind	Newport	$5,000	Trees were down and blocking a road in this location due to damaging thunderstorm wind gusts.
June 1998	Thunderstorm Wind	Newport	$1,500	Trees and power lines blown down.
May 2009	Flood	Newport	$1,000	Extensive lowland flooding occurred along the Wabash River near Hillsdale, Indiana. The river crested 12.1 feet above flood stage on May 18th at a reading of 26.1 feet. Damage costs are grossly estimated.
January 2008	Flood	Newport	$1,000	Flooding occurred along the Wabash River in Vermillion County due to heavy rain and snow melt. Flooding began on December 22nd and continued into January.
June 2007	Thunderstorm Wind	Newport	$1,000	Power lines were reported down due to damaging thunderstorm winds.
April 2009	Flood	Newport	-	Flooding of bottomlands occurred along the Wabash River near Hillsdale, Indiana. The river crested twice, both of which were in May. Again, flooding continued into May.
April 2009	Flood	Newport	-	Fairly extensive flooding of lowland and some higher bottomlands occurred along the Wabash River near Hillsdale, Indiana. The river crested at 21 feet on April 10th, 7 feet above flood stage. The river remained above flood stage until April 26th. These readings were obtained at the Montezuma river gauge at nearby Montezuma, Indiana of Parke County.
May 2009	Flood	Newport	-	Flooding of bottomlands occurred along the Wabash River near Hillsdale, Indiana. This was a continuation of flooding from April. The river crested twice, both of which were in May. The primary crest was at 19.73 feet on May 3rd and the secondary crest at 16.1 feet on May 9th. Flood stage is 14 feet at the Montezuma, Indiana river gauge. Crop damage is grossly estimated.
June 2008	Thunderstorm Wind	Newport	-	Trees were knocked down due to damaging thunderstorm winds.
August 2005	Thunderstorm Wind	Newport	-	A tree was downed.
May 2004	Hail	Newport	-	no account filed
July 2003	Thunderstorm Wind	Newport	-	no account filed
February 1999	Thunderstorm Wind	Newport	-	no account filed
April 1998	Hail	Newport	-	no account filed
January 1996	Hail	Newport	-	no account filed

Every storm recorded in Vermillion 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

5 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
Vermillion County Courthouse	1.4 miles	2007
Vermillion County Jail and Sheriff's Residence	2.7 miles	1999
Eugene Covered Bridge	5.8 miles	1994
Possom Bottom Covered Bridge	6.6 miles	1994
Elder-Pyle House	6.8 miles	2021

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 94000589 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Vermillion County	All 9 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.