Ada Covered Bridge

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1970.

From the record

“The Ada Covered Bridge is a 125-foot (38 m) span Brown truss covered bridge erected in 1867 in Ada, Michigan, United States. Carrying Bronson Street across the Thornapple River, it is located just south of where the Thornapple enters the Grand River, in turn just south of M-21.”
Wikipedia article Ada Covered Bridge, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 57 National Register listings published here for Kent County · listed in 1970 · category: Structure.

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. Across the Thornapple River, Ada, 49301
When was it listed? February 1970
Category. structure
Township. Ada township
National Register reference number. 70000275 - 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

35 since 2018

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 35 fires within 5 miles of Ada Covered Bridge between 2018 and 2020, burning about 35 acres in total. 4 started naturally. None was 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
Equipment and vehicle use	22
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	6
Natural	4
Recreation and ceremony	2
Smoking	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
6 July 2018	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	1.0 acres	Michigan Department of Natural Resources	LOWELL AREA FD 472 - 2018
20 July 2018	Recreation and ceremony	1.0 acres	Michigan Department of Natural Resources	CASCADE CHARTER TOWNSHIP FD 1208 - 2018
24 June 2018	Equipment and vehicle use	1.0 acres	Michigan Department of Natural Resources	CASCADE CHARTER TOWNSHIP FD 1057 - 2018
17 June 2020	Natural	1.0 acres	Michigan Department of Natural Resources	CASCADE CHARTER TOWNSHIP FD 893 - 2020
18 May 2018	Recreation and ceremony	1.0 acres	Michigan Department of Natural Resources	CASCADE CHARTER TOWNSHIP FD 816 - 2018
18 May 2018	Equipment and vehicle use	1.0 acres	Michigan Department of Natural Resources	ADA TOWNSHIP FD 0000246 - 2018
13 May 2020	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	1.0 acres	Michigan Department of Natural Resources	CASCADE CHARTER TOWNSHIP FD 716 - 2020
1 May 2018	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	1.0 acres	Michigan Department of Natural Resources	CASCADE CHARTER TOWNSHIP FD 693 - 2018

Every fire recorded in Kent County

Mines and quarries near this property

8 within 5 miles

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 8 workings within 5 miles of Ada Covered Bridge: 7 producers, 1 past producer. 7 still produce. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction, Fire Clay (Refractory). 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
Grand Rap Clay Prod Co Clay Pit	Fire Clay (Refractory)	Past Producer
Chadwick Pit and Mill	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Producer
Great Lakes Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Producer
Katz Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Producer
Mathews Pit & Mill	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Producer
Pickett and Schreur Inc. Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Producer
Pickett and Schreur Inc. Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Producer
Pickett and Shreur Inc. Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Producer

Every working recorded in Kent County

Storms near this property

7 since 1996

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Ada, the town this property stands in, in 7 storm reports between 1996 and 2016: 3 hail, 3 thunderstorm wind, 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
June 2005	Thunderstorm Wind	Ada	$25,000	no account filed
June 2005	Thunderstorm Wind	Ada	$20,000	no account filed
July 2000	Hail	Ada	$20,000	no account filed
May 2004	Hail	Ada	$10,000	Three quarters inch diameter hail was reported in Ada by broadcast media.
August 2016	Thunderstorm Wind	Ada	$5,000	A couple of trees were blown down near Ada and a report of three quarters inch diameter hail was also received.
May 1999	Hail	Ada	-	0.88" diameter hail was observed in Ada.
June 1996	Flash Flood	Ada	-	no account filed

Every storm recorded in Kent 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
Thornapple River Drive Bridge	0.9 miles	1990
Whitney Tavern Stand	5.9 miles	2007
Sisters of the Order of Saint Dominic Motherhouse Complex	6.8 miles	2022
John W. Blodgett Estate	7.0 miles	1983
Mathias. Alten House and Studio	7.3 miles	2009
Graham House	7.4 miles	1972

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 70000275 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Kent County	All 57 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.