Salem-Shotwell Covered Bridge: The Last of Its Kind in the County

Otto Puls built this covered bridge in nineteen hundred over Wacoochee Creek, framing it in longleaf pine heartwood and pinning the lattice with white oak pegs, with cedar shakes on the roof. The design, a Town Lattice truss, was standard for the era, economical and strong. The bridge linked the small communities of Salem and Shotwell and carried wagons and then trucks for over a century.

In two thousand five a fallen tree collapsed the old structure into the creek. Rather than let it disappear, local preservationists rebuilt it to forty-three feet at Opelika Municipal Park, where it now spans Rocky Brook. It was rededicated in two thousand seven. This is the last surviving covered bridge in Lee County, Alabama, saved twice over, first by a carpenter in nineteen hundred and then by a community that refused to let it go.