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Photograph of Harpersfield Covered Bridge
Photograph by Photo by and ©2003 Homefryes, CC BY-SA 2.5. Via Wikimedia Commons.

Harpersfield Covered Bridge

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1975. A historic map-sheet match is not published yet. The record needs a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary.

From the record

“Harpersfield Bridge is a covered bridge spanning the Grand River in Harpersfield Township, Ashtabula County, Ohio, United States. This double-span Howe truss bridge, one of currently 17 drivable covered bridges in the county, is the third longest covered bridge in Ohio at 228 feet.”

Wikipedia article Harpersfield Covered Bridge, CC BY-SA 4.0.

one of 36 National Register listings in Ashtabula County · listed in 1975 · category: Structure · one of 1 National Historic Landmarks in Ashtabula County.

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. County Road 154 over the Grand River, Harpersfield, 44041
  • When was it listed? 1975-11-03
  • Category. structure
  • Township. Harpersfield township
  • National Register reference number. 75001315 - 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.

Specimens collected near this property

12 of 825 shown

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. Museums hold 825 specimens collected within 10 miles of Harpersfield Covered Bridge between 1891 and 1975: 714 Animalia, 94 Plantae, 16 Fungi, 1 Chromista. 12 distinct Species records are shown. Collected by A. A. Bill, A. B. Fuller, A. Burhanna and others. Each is a physical object with a catalogue number, and each entry opens the museum's record. This is what was collected and kept, not a survey of what lives here - nothing can be concluded from a species being absent.

Image SpeciesYear Collected by Where, as recorded
A photograph of the species Moxostoma anisurum, not of this specimenMoxostoma anisurum (Rafinesque, 1820)1891not recordedGeneva
A photograph of the species Aplodinotus grunniens, not of this specimenAplodinotus grunniens Rafinesque, 18191893A. WoolmanRed Brook, Harbor, Ohio
A photograph of the species Cambarus bartonii, not of this specimenCambarus bartonii (Fabricius, 1798)1893Woolman & United States Fish CommissionGeneva, Cowles Creek
A photograph of the species Catostomus commersonii, not of this specimenCatostomus commersonii (Lacepède, 1803)1893not recordedCowles Creek, Geneva, Ohio
A photograph of the species Dendrolycopodium dendroideum, not of this specimenDendrolycopodium dendroideum (Michx.) A.Haines1893A. A. BillGeneva
A photograph of the species Etheostoma caeruleum, not of this specimenEtheostoma caeruleum Storer, 18451893not recordedCowles Creek, Geneva, Ohio
A photograph of the species Etheostoma nigrum, not of this specimenEtheostoma nigrum Rafinesque, 18201893not recordedCowles Creek, Geneva, Ohio
A photograph of the species Geranium pusillum, not of this specimenGeranium pusillum L.1893GoodrichAshtabula Co.
A photograph of the species Ictalurus punctatus, not of this specimenIctalurus punctatus (Rafinesque, 1818)1893A. WoolmanRed Brook, Harbor, Ohio
A photograph of the species Labidesthes sicculus, not of this specimenLabidesthes sicculus (Cope, 1865)1893not recordedGeneva, Ohio
A photograph of the species Lepisosteus osseus, not of this specimenLepisosteus osseus (Linnaeus, 1758)1893A. WoolmanRed Brook, Harbor, Ohio
A photograph of the species Lithobates clamitans, not of this specimenLithobates clamitans (Latreille, 1801)1893not recordedGeneva, Cowles Creek

All 825 specimens within 10 miles, at the Global Biodiversity Information Facility.

Storms near this property

1 since 2016

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Harpersfield, the town this property stands in, in 1 storm report between 2016 and 2016: 1 thunderstorm wind. 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.

WhenEvent Place namedHarm What the report says
August 2016Thunderstorm WindHarpersfield$35,000Thunderstorm down burst winds tore the roof off of a barn at a vineyard located along State Route 307 south of Geneva.

Every storm recorded in Ashtabula 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.

From the nomination file

1,827 words on record

When this property was proposed for the National Register, someone wrote the case for it: what the building is, and why it matters. That document is a federal record in the public domain. It is quoted below word for word, never summarised. The text was read off the scanned case file by machine, so the occasional stray character is the recogniser's and the 1970s typewriter's.

Description of the property

high-boarded, vertical siding, a shingle roof and straight portals with pier and northern pier sare concrete.

great advance in bridge engineering because it introduced the use of the a 2-span covered bridge, but the great flood of 1913 cut a new channel a- CONDITION roads and highway bridge builders.The Howe truss has wooden braces and Fair center pier were either washed out completely or so badly damaged, that tightened up by means of turnbuckles if necessary to straighten a sagging Making it the longest covered bridge in the state.These megsurements do The structure under consideration is a 2-span wooden truss covered bridge The Harpersfield Bridge is a 2-span Howe truss with a truss length of 236 truss.It is believed that at that time, the original north abutment and snows of 1962-63 collapsed the roof and the bridge was closed while a new when the steel span was built, entirely new concrete piers and abutment counterbraces in the shape of xts with the iron rods as the verticals.

iron rods for the first time in a bridge truss.These iron rods could be not inclgde the l42' steel truss span at the north end of the covered 6"rafters sheeted with "x 4' x 8' sheets of plywood and covered with all of untreated pine.The siding is l" pine boards.The roof is 2"x In November l963,all the siding was replaced with the 1"pine boards men- (Check One) anda clear span length of 230'.The total length of the bridge is 243' and is2"x 6"pine.The top chords are 2-4"x8"and1-l2"x8" and the X Good - Unexposed Original Site spanning the Grand River in Harpersfield Township, county road 154 at overhang. The south abutment 1s the original cut-stone, while the center patented in 1840 by William Howe of Spencer, Mass. The Howe truss was a tioned above.

Read the complete 1,827-word case file.

Statement of significance

At one time, covered wooden bridges of over 500' in length were not uncommon here in Ohio, but today, the Harpersfield Covered Bridge is name from the village of Harpersfield. This area was the site of a The state relocated the highway to the east and the bridge reverted AUG 1 9 1975 Conservation Engineering Commerce Military losophy Education Architecture SIGNIFICANCE REGISTER Transportation Communications Aboriginal Science Prehistoric Theater Literature Invention NATIONAL Social/Human- Agriculture Political RECEIVED Music Sculpture Urban Planning Landscape dam which is just to the east of the bridge.A waterworks which county park system. grist and saw mill and the mill stream enters the Grand River at the Religion/Phi.

generated electricity was built here in l9ol.The road became part bridge remaining in the state.It is said that this bridge was built closing this bridge to traffic and turning it over to the adjacent 16th Century Other (Specify) in l873 by a carpenter by the name of Potter.The bridge takes its to the county highway system in 1962.The county is now considering Pre-Columbian of the state highway system in the early 1930's and was known as SR SPECIFIC DATE(S) (If Applicable and Known) AREAS OF SIGNIFICANCE (Check One or More as Appropriate) Of especial significance to us because at 243' it is the longest such 1873 Art Industry 9.

The whole case file for this property - 1,827 words, 14 pages, reproduced complete.

Quoted from the National Register nomination for reference 75001315, 14 pages, held by the National Archives in Record Group 79. See the catalogue record.

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.

Photograph PropertyDistance Listed
Shandy Hall2.7 miles1974
Congregational Church Of Austinburg4.7 miles1978
Austin, Eliphalet, House4.8 miles1975
Peck, L. W., House5.8 miles1976
Eagle Cliff Hotel7.2 miles1995
Rock Creek School7.8 miles2005

Sources for this property

National Archives recordThe nomination case file for reference 75001315 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia articleCommunity-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Ashtabula CountyAll 36 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.
  • Specimens. Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), https://www.gbif.org/. Only records licensed CC0 or CC BY are used. Records licensed CC BY-NC are excluded because this site carries advertising. Images are checked individually and any whose licence is non-commercial, no-derivatives or unreadable is refused.
  • 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.