I last visited this bridge in 2012 after I found out that Michigan had a handful of covered bridges. I figured it would be a good project to get pictures of all of them. Since three of those bridges are within about 20 miles of each other, I started there.
The first bridge was the Fallasburg Bridge. And then I got the Whites Bridge (this one). Then I visited the covered bridge in Ada.
The Whites Bridge was the third bridge over this part of the river. The first was built in 1840 and was a corduroy bridge. That bridge was replaced 1856 but that was destroyed by an ice jam. This bridge was built in 1870 by the same man that built the Fallasburg Bridge. For the longest time, most of the original structure remained with on replacements to the siding or the roof. That made the Whites Bridge the oldest in Michigan that still had original parts.
That changed on July 7, 2013 when an arsonist burned the bridge down. The investigation of who did it is still ongoing and it is unlikely they will ever find that out. Shortly after that, a group of folks started to raise funds for the reconstruction. In 2015, that group announced they had enough funding to begin construction. In 2016, construction of a replica bridge was approved. In April of this year, construction was completed and sometime later cars were approved to use it again.
I think there are camera around it so that if some should try to burn this one down, they will find out who did it. I'm not sure if they were able to use any of the original materials. At any rate, it is nice that at least a replica of this bridge is here. Especially since Michigan has so few covered bridges.
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