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| The Oquawka Covered Bridge 4/20/2019 dwm photo |
Oquawka is a small town 2 and a half miles north of the bridge which was moved to a roadside park in 1935.
I love the name. It's pronounced, OH - kwa - Kuh, emphasis on the O. I stopped in town to get gas and Mt. Dew and learn how to pronounce the name of the place on the east bank of the Mississippi.
The clerk said I was right.
Jacob Allaman built the structure in 1866 over Henderson Creek. That creek, by the way, is quite the meander-er, I crossed the creek half-a-dozen times.
The County Commission moved it in the mid-1930s.
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| The county's namesake waterway - Henderson Creek - flows under the Oquawka Bridge. 4/20/19 (dwm) |
Local residents and the state Department of Transportation rebuilt it by salvaging most of wood from the original and raised it an additional three feet.
It is only open for walkers now. The roadside park was closed to cars when we got there. I guess it opens in May, but the gates didn't extend around the property, so I walked in to get the pictures.
A fisherman did the same thing, angling for fish upstream from the bridge.
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| A Burr Arch Truss bridge. 4/20/2019 (dwm) |
Once you leave the Interstate, it is a beautiful trip across slight, rolling farm fields. The towns along the way are small. By comparison, they made Oquawka look big.
This bridge didn't even make the cut for a website dedicated to beautiful and historic covered bridges in the Land of Lincoln.
I don't what they were thinking - this one deserves to be on the list.
Oquawka Covered Bridge
Built: 1866 by Jacob Allaman repaired in 1929 and 1982
Style: Burr Arch
Length: 104 feet over Henderson Creek
See more covered bridges by following this link.
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