Fall in Love with Blount County's Covered Bridges

As the weather cools and the leaves change, Blount County becomes a top tourist destination. Visitors come to experience the picturesque view of the three covered bridges in the county. Known as the “Covered Bridge Capital of Alabama”, Blount County is home to the Covered Bridge Festival. The one-day event, set this year for Saturday, October 12th, is hosted by the Blount-Oneonta Chamber of Commerce in downtown Oneonta and honors the history and impact of the bridges on the community.

The Covered Bridge Festival, now in its 40th year, sees more than 10,000 people come to the downtown streets each year to enjoy live music, arts & crafts vendors, a car show and the Kidz Zone. But, the fun doesn’t stop there. Festivities extend outside of the downtown area. That morning, the Blount County Children’s Center kicks off the festival with their pancake breakfast fundraiser at Lester Memorial Methodist Church. The Friends of the Locust Fork River invite visitors on a two-mile round trip river walk from Swann Covered Bridge to Powell Falls, and the Chamber is officially bringing back the Covered Bridges Bus Tour something Blount-Oneonta Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Bekah Phillips is particularly excited about this year.

“The Covered Bridges Bus Tour truly gives visitors to our county the chance to not only see two of our three covered bridges, but they will also have a tour guide on the bus that will give them the history of the bridges and the surrounding areas,” she says.

The tour will have four main destinations totaling three hours with 20-30 minute stops at each location including Horton Mill Covered Bridge, Easley Covered Bridge, King’s Bend Scenic Overlook Park and Palisades Park. Tickets can be purchased by visiting blountoneontachamber.org or emailing [email protected]. Buses will be provided by the Blount County Commission. The stop at Palisades Park also includes an optional visit to the annual Quilt Show.

“Our covered bridges are what people outside our surrounding counties remember us by, but we are so much more than our bridges,” says Chamber of Commerce Administrative Assistant Jennifer Bowman. “When people visit us during Covered Bridge Festival, it’s always so good to hear what else they find to love about our county. The Bridges Bus Tour offers that chance to get to know us better.”

Horton Mill Covered Bridge is located five miles north of Oneonta on State Highway 75. Built in the mid-1930s, the wooden bridge is 220-foot-long. Crossing over the Black Warrior River at 70-foot high, Horton Mill is one of the highest covered bridges in the nation. It is closed to vehicle traffic, but pedestrians can still cross the bridge.

Easley Covered Bridge is located five miles northwest of Oneonta on Easley Covered Bridge Road, off US Highway 231. The bridge is 95-foot long and was built in the late 1920s. It is a town lattice truss construction that spans the Dub Branch of the Calvert Prong of the Little Warrior River. Currently, Easley is the only covered bridge in Blount County motorists can drive across.

Swann Covered Bridge is located on Swann Bridge Road off State Highway 79 just west of the town of Cleveland and about 10 miles northwest of Oneonta. The wood-and-metal bridge is one of the longest covered bridges in the nation at 324-foot long with it crossing the Locust Fork of the Black Warrior River. It is currently closed to motorist traffic.

For information, follow the Blount-Oneonta Chamber of Commerce on Facebook or call 205-274-2153.

 https://www.alabamasmalltowns.com/2024/10/12/214403/covered-bridge-festival/

Written by: Nicole Tolbert