Photographs from the nomination case file, National Park Service records.
Burkeville Covered Bridge
Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in
1988. 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
one of 28 National Register listings in Franklin County · listed in 1988 · category: Structure · one of 1 National Historic Landmarks in Franklin County.
National Register reference number.88001456- 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
15 since 2015
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The
federal wildfire occurrence database
lists 15 fires within 5 miles of Burkeville Covered Bridge between
2015 and 2020, burning about 37 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
8
Equipment and vehicle use
3
Power generation/transmission/distribution
3
Missing data/not specified/undetermined
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 3,546 specimens
collected within 10 miles of Burkeville Covered Bridge between 1822 and
1975: 1,739 Plantae, 1,007 Fungi, 760 Animalia, 30 Protozoa, 5 Chromista, 5 Unrecorded. 12 distinct Species records are shown.
Collected by A V Osmun, A., A. Clark 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.
black sh, [property of T.M. Stoughton, 1871 Beers County map, previously owned by Dr. Roswell Field], S side of Connecticut River, Horse Race, Montague
black sh, [property of T.M. Stoughton, 1871 Beers County map, previously owned by Dr. Roswell Field], S side of Connecticut River, Horse Race, Montague
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists
20 workings within 5 miles of Burkeville Covered Bridge: 7 occurrences, 7 prospects, 3 past producers, 3 producers.
3 still produce. What was taken out: Lead, Silver, Lead, Silver, Barium-Barite. Distance is straight-line from the
map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring
settlement's page as well.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The National Weather Service names
Conway, the town this property stands in, in 16 storm reports between 1995 and 2023: 8 thunderstorm wind, 5 hail, 1 heavy rain, 1 lightning.
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.
In Conway, trees and wires were downed on Boyden Road. Most of the wind damage reported was in Sunderland where many trees were downed and blocked roads in some cases, including parts of Route 47, North Plain Road, and Silver Lane. Two trees fell onto houses on Sunderland Road and Long Plain Road. Trees were also reported downed in South Deerfield on King Phillip Avenue, in New Salem on Neilson Road, and in Shutesbury.
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
6,072 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.
Statement of significance
Burkavilla Covered Pridge ,Corway, Massachusetts Certifying official has considered the significance of this property in relation to other properties: nationally x statewide xlocally Applicable National Register Criteria x Criteria Considerations (Exceptions) Areas of Significance (enter categories from instructions) ransportatton Eng ineer 1ng Peripgó-Sighficance 5g/0-98%Dates Cultural A/jliation SignWgant Person Archigeerwide, Sylvanus P. State significance of property,and justifycriteria, criteria considerations, and areas and periods of significance noted above. The Burkeville Covered Bridge retains integrity of location, design, setting, naterials, crartsmanship, ana association.
The bridge is one of only five nistoric-period covered bridges in Massachusetts, and one of only a handful in the nation identified of the multiple kingrod variety. It is also the oldest known combination timber and iron truss in Massachusetts. The bridge has also been closely associated with the development of the village of Burkeville and the town. The Burkeville Covered Bridge thus meets criteria A and C of the National Register of Historic Places on the state and local levels. Conway is a hilltown on the western edge of the Connecticut Valley in Massachusetts. Rising steeply from the lowlands of the Deerfield River Valley on the east, the town is dominated by the metomorphic shists which form the bedrock of the town and appear in numerous rock outcrops.
The resistance of these rocks, formed in the continental collision 400 million years ago, has provided the town with the natural water power which drove the local economy in the 19th century. The largest and most heavily utilized of these streams was the South River. The river rises in Ashfield, the adjoining town on the west, and runs east through Burkeville and Conway Village before turning north and flowing into the Deerfield River, which forms the northeast border of the town. In its nine-mile course, the river falls over 630 feet.
Quoted from the National Register nomination
for reference 88001456, 22 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.
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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