🌉 Sayres Covered Bridge
Thetford, VT · also known as Thetford Center Covered Bridge · built c. 1840
Photo: JERRYE & ROY KLOTZ MD via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)The Sayres (or Sayers) Bridge, named for the Sayre brothers' nearby furniture and table business, is Vermont's only known example of a Haupt patent truss, and one of very few in New England, combining plank diagonals joined with treenails and a segmented plank arch. Its builders' names are lost. In 1963 the deck was replaced with steel beams on a new mid-stream concrete pier, and in 1997 local craftsmen rebuilt much of the roof and thirteen tie beams, using hemlock cut from the town forest, after a dump truck with its bed raised tore off two-thirds of the roof. The bridge was renovated again in 2007 and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places, as the Thetford Center Covered Bridge, on September 17, 1974.
Exploring the area? See our The Complete Vermont Guide guide for more nearby spots.
Bridge facts compiled from the National Register of Historic Places, the Vermont Covered Bridge Society and town histories. Map pin is approximate.