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
“The Byer Covered Bridge is a covered bridge on State Route 31 in Byer, Ohio, United States. Built in around 1870, it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1975.”
Wikipedia article Byer Covered Bridge, CC BY-SA 4.0.
one of 10 National Register listings in Jackson County · listed in 1975 · category: Structure.
National Register reference number.75001441- 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
26 since 2006
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The
federal wildfire occurrence database
lists 26 fires within 5 miles of Byer Covered Bridge between
2006 and 2019, burning about 147 acres in total. None started naturally. 5 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
15
Arson/incendiarism
5
Missing data/not specified/undetermined
3
Equipment and vehicle use
2
Recreation and ceremony
1
The most recent of
them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service
that recorded it.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. Museums hold 930 specimens
collected within 10 miles of Byer Covered Bridge between 1878 and
1975: 457 Animalia, 417 Plantae, 55 Fungi, 1 Unrecorded. 12 distinct Species records are shown.
Collected by 'Odell, D., A. Cronquist, A. M. Evans 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.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The National Weather Service names
Byer, the town this property stands in, in 2 storm reports between 2008 and 2010: 1 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.
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
1,829 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
Ohio. This old bridge has vertical, high-boarded siding, a bution of the load, its lightness and cheapness. The Byer Bridge is a 7 panel Smith with a 74 floor length and an over- 1934. CONDITION Moved Fair This is known as the Byer Covered Bridge and was built in features reinforcement of the center panel with 2 diagonals. The structure under consideration is a one-span wooden truss sheet metal roof, concrete abutments and projected portals. Raymond E.Wilson in the April l967 Covered Bridge Topics All Smith truss types feature rigidly fastened roof and floor Byer Bridge is a Smith truss, type 3. A type 3 Smith truss stringers.Mr.Smith claimed that the advantages of his truss truss members measure from 7" x 6" to 8" x 8".
type were to be found in the method of bracing, equal distr1- width 1s 13'8". The floor is made up of 3" planks of untreated ana 1009 by Robert W. Smith of Tipp City, later Toledo, Ohio. a 45° angle between 60° counterbraces. Bridge truss expert all length of 82'. The overall width is 17'4" and the roadway Excellent Good covered bridge spanning Pigeon Creek at Byer in Washington oak laid diagonally.All truss members are single timbers ex- Township sections 7-8 on county road 31 in Jackson County, not the original foundations of the bridge, but were there when The 1869 patent,#97,714,was an improvement on the 1867 patent.It featured an open center panel and braces set at - Pre-Columbian! - 20th Century AREAS OF
Statement of significance
the west and southeast by the Richland State Forest. This 1s one of only three such spans left in Jackson County, is in Engineering Conservation Commerce Science Military Historical losophy Architecture Communications Aboriginal Education Industry Literature Landscape SIGNIFICANCE itarian Religion/Phi Agriculture Music today. Prehistoric Social/Human- Invention Political trusses and shipped them by railroad to the buildingsite. There good condition and well-worthy of preservation. white. Byer Covered Bridge, also painted white, is an important group of prehistoric Indian rock carvings.
Byer is a small, Buttermilk Hollow,Log Pile Hollow, Skunk Hollow and Tick this may account for the fact that all the covered bridges of miles southwest of Byer is Leo Petroglyph State Memorial, a built when coal was king in Jackson County.Richland Iron Fur- was part of the old Hanging Rock Iron Region and just about trially interesting section of the state.The old bridge was road system again.Byer Bridge is in an historically and indus- part of the community and has been for over a century now. It nace a few miles away was still in operation at the time.
Three is one of only two Ohioans ever to be given a patent on wooden Ohio and elsewhere in the country.Fifteen remain here in Ohio In 1934,the State Highway Department took over the road through in the early l87o's, probably by the Smith Bridge Company.One Other (Specify) PERIOD (Check One or More as Appropriate) early 1870's SPECIFIC DATE(S) (If Applicable and Known) 3 miles northeast of Byer are the remains of old Richland Iron as Ellsworth and the name was changed to Byers in honor of the was & Smith Bridge Company representative in Portsmouth and Art Source says that the builder was W.H.
Quoted from the National Register nomination
for reference 75001441, 12 pages, held by the National Archives in Record
Group 79. See the
catalogue record.
Listed places nearby
4 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.
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.
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.
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