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Narrows or Lusk Mill, Parke County

If you find errors in the data please contact Bill Caswell.

If you would like to provide information on covered bridges that no longer exist from your state, or adopt a state to work on, we would certainly welcome your assistance. Please contact Trish Kane for more information.

Inventory Number: IN/14-61-36
Parke County Number: PC-37
County: Parke County
Township: Sugar Creek
Town/Village:
Bridge Name: Narrows or Lusk Mill
Crosses: Sugar Creek
Truss type: Burr
Spans: 1
Length: 121' floor, 141' roofline
Roadway Width:
Built: 1882 or 1883
Builder: Joseph A. Britton
When Lost: standing
Cause:
Latitude: N39 53.462
Longitude: W087 11.142
See a map of the area
Topographic map of the area
Directions: 0.8 miles east of main entrance to Turkey Run State Park on IN47, then 0.7 miles left on west side of Narrows Rd.

Narrows or Lusk Mill Bridge, Sugar Creek, Parke County, IN Built 1882 or 1883
Bill & Jenn Caswell Photo, November 14, 2019

Narrows or Lusk Mill Bridge, Sugar Creek, Parke County, IN Built 1882 or 1883
Richard Donovan / Trish Kane Collection

Narrows or Lusk Mill Bridge, Sugar Creek, Parke County, IN Built 1882 or 1883
Bill & Jenn Caswell Photo, November 14, 2019

Narrows or Lusk Mill Bridge, Sugar Creek, Parke County, IN Built 1882 or 1883
Dale J. Travis Photo
Narrows or Lusk Mill Bridge, Sugar Creek, Parke County, IN Built 1882 or 1883
H. M. Mackenzie Photo, October 1953

Narrows or Lusk Mill Bridge, Sugar Creek, Parke County, IN Built 1882 or 1883
Todd Clark Collection

Narrows or Lusk Mill Bridge, Sugar Creek, Parke County, IN Built 1882 or 1883
Bryan Ketcham Photo, August 27, 1947, Theodore Burr Covered Bridge Resource Center Collection

Comments:
[26-17N-7W]. 14-panel truss. This is the third bridge at this location. The first one was built by Salmon Lusk in 1840. It was destroyed in 1847. Lusk built the replacement which was destroyed in 1875. The county opened bids for its replacement on August 24,1882 and rejected all of them. The proposals included both wooden and iron structures. They later awarded a contract to Joseph Britton for $3,400, the first covered bridge contract of his career. The bridge was closed and bypassed in 1960. It was rebuilt by Indiana’s Department of Natural Resources in 1977. At some point, Britton’s typical angled portals were changed to arched openings.

Sources:
Ketcham, Bryan E.. Covered Bridges on the Byways of Indiana, 1949, page 88
Gould, George E.. Indiana's Covered Bridges Thru the Years, 1977
County History Preservation Society (no longer accessible). Covered Bridges of Indiana, 2002, http://www.countyhistory.com/coveredbridge/parke/narrows.htm
Rau, Harold. A Guide to the Covered Bridges of Parke County, Indiana, 2016, pages 46-47
National Society for the Preservation of Covered Bridges. World Guide to Covered Bridges, 2021, page 26

Compilation 2026 Covered Spans of Yesteryear

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