The highlight of the festival, however, is the 32 covered bridges in Parke County that date back to 1856. The covered bridges of America have been a tribute to man's technical ingenuity, built out of need, and they leave behind a permanent monument to a short-lived art form. This bit of vanishing Americana is annually saluted, admired, sketched, painted and photographed. Ten years ago, it was estimated covered bridges were vanishing at the rate of one per day. But, about 1,500 still survive in the United States as well as about 600 in Canada.
Most people think of a covered bridge as a New England creation.
New England was the wellspring of covered bridges. However, there are about 325 of them in Pennsylvania, more than any other state. Ohio has more than 230 covered bridges, and Indiana has about 106. It was largely self- taught Yankee engineers and architects who designed the first covered bridges. They discovered methods of strengthening bridges with framework of center posts and diagonal braces.