Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in
1978. 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 Bowman Mill Covered Bridge, in Perry County, Ohio, is a multiple kingpost truss covered bridge which was built in 1880. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978.”
Wikipedia article Bowman Mill Covered Bridge, CC BY-SA 4.0.
one of 11 National Register listings in Perry County · listed in 1978 · category: Structure.
National Register reference number.78002169- 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
20,608 words
The chapter on Reading Township in 1883 History Perry County, Ohio, published 1883 names New Reading. This is what it says, exactly as the scans read.
It is not known to a certainty who erected the first cabin on a lot of the platted village, but it is probable that several persons built during the same season. 'The place grew slowly enough at first, for Overmyertown (now New Reading) was a rival, and an older town, and there was, at that time, nothing in the nature of the locality or surroundings, to cause villages to grow with any great rapidity. Edward Danison, now in his eighty-eigth year, a citizen of New Lexington, has a very clear remembrance of Somerset when it contained only five or six houses. Mr. Danison was a youth of seventeen or eighteen years at that time, and lived with his parents in Madison township. He says the little village of Somerset, for several years, is easily described, as it consisted of a couple of
New Rrapinc. - New Reading, for a long time better known as Overmyertown, situated three miles from Somerset, in the western part of Reading township. was laid out in 1805, by Peter Overmyer, father of the venerable Peter Overmyer, who now resides in the vicinity of New Reading. This village is the oldest in the county, antedating Somerset, Rehoboth, Thornville, New Lexington, and all the other villages of the county. Wheh the county of Perry was formed, New Reading was a candidate for the seat of justice, and its citizens were disappointed and displeased when they failed to secure the location. The village has just about held its own for sixty years and more. It contains two churches, a schoolhouse, store, physician, a few shops, and several neat and comfortable private residences, and had, in June, 1880, one hundred and eighteen inhabitants. "Phe town is handsomely situated, and is surrounded by a country not only ferule and healthy, but one of the loveliest to be found anywhere in the State, and capable of being made almost a second paradise.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The
federal wildfire occurrence database
lists 13 fires within 5 miles of Bowman Mill Covered Bridge between
2012 and 2020, burning about 23 acres in total. None 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
Debris and open burning
6
Recreation and ceremony
4
Missing data/not specified/undetermined
3
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 250 specimens
collected within 10 miles of Bowman Mill Covered Bridge between 1891 and
1975: 219 Animalia, 20 Fungi, 8 Plantae, 2 Unrecorded, 1 Protozoa. 12 distinct Species records are shown.
Collected by Bergstrom, J., Black R. J., Buchanan, J. 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 federal mineral resources record lists
3 workings within 5 miles of Bowman Mill Covered Bridge: 1 producer, 1 plant, 1 past producer.
2 still produce. What was taken out: Stone, Crushed/Broken, Limestone, General. Distance is straight-line from the
map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring
settlement's page as well.
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
1,706 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
roofed window on each side, a metal roof, straight portals and cut-stone abut- 25" long and 20" high, have been cut into the siding on the northeast and south- layer, laid longitudinally except for a few boards at each end which are laid pier is undoubtedly a later addition and is also of stone laid with mortar. of the center pier, but we do not know when this was done. Because of the type construction used in this pier, we know it is not a recent addition. CONDITION UNEXPOSED EXCELLENT UNALTERED DETERIORATED XALTERED FAIR CHECK ONE The portals of the Bowman Mill Bridge are white with blue stars and the The Bowman Mill Covered Bridge has obviously been altered by the addition ments and pier.
member or kingpost is in tension and the diagonals are in compression.The transversely.The cut-stone abutments are laid with mortar and there is a usual kingpost with diagonal on each side as is found in most multiple king- multiple kingpost was used where a longer bridge was needed.
covered bridges red, white and blue in honor of the nation's Bicentennial in Perry County's Parks Bridge.The multiple kingpost truss plan used in The structure under consideration is a two-span wooden truss covered bridge This pier is pointed on both sides to prevent debtis from piling up in high slightly arched, giving the bridge a pronounced camber or humpback appear- this bridge was the plan most commonly used here in Ohio for wooden truss a6 panel multiple kingpost truss with an open center panel instead of the spanning Rush Creek on Winegardner Road (CR 86) in Reading Township section County, Ohio.
Bridge, was an important part of the transportation system of this area when the 1600-1699 1500-1599 1700-1799 Historical INVENTION EDUCATION ART BUILDER/ARCHITECT COMMERCE RELIGION 1900- PHILOSOPHY SCIENCE SCULPTURE ARCHITECTURE XTRANSPORTATION PREHISTORIC SIGNIFICANCE EXPLORATION/SETTLEMENT THEATER AGRICULTURE LITERATURE MILITARY X_ENGINEERING MUSIC Engineering Department. INDUSTRY _POLITICS/GOVERNMENT _CONSERVATION also referred to as the Rush Creek or Readington Bridge.The name Bowman comes SOCIAL/HUMANITARIAN about that time.
PERIOD -1400-1499 the fall of l975 under the supervision of George W.Jones of the Perry County center in the l9th century.According to the record books of the Southern Ohio from the family who operated the grist and saw mills on the banks of Rush Creek with blue stars and the dates 1776-l976 on each portal.This work was done in _ECONOMICS old Somerset Village, first county seat of Perry County.
Quoted from the National Register nomination
for reference 78002169, 11 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.
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.
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.
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