Locust Creek Covered Bridge was part of Route 8, the first transcontinental highway in the United States and the primary east-west artery in Linn County, and before that designation the route helped carry western migration, including California gold rush migrants traveling toward Independence, Missouri, the eastern end of the Oregon Trail, as early as 1849. Locally, the bridge was significant for the service it provided area residents during 70 years of active use. Its later seclusion resulted from three changes: sometime after 1945 the channel of Locust Creek was altered, leaving the bridge over a dry creek bed; U.S. Highway 36, one mile south, replaced old Route 8; and a second bridge on the west access road washed out, after which the county stopped maintaining the half-mile access road in 1960. On May 19, 1868, the Linn County Court ordered construction of a covered bridge across Locust Creek at a cost not to exceed $5,500, and Bishop & Eaton received the contract on August 4, 1868, completing the work later that year. Then known as Linn County Covered Bridge, it measured 150 feet long, 16 feet 3 inches wide, and 20 feet 3 inches high. By an act of the Missouri Legislature on May 25, 1967, the state assumed responsibility for all existing covered bridges in Missouri, and soon afterward the State Park Board restored the bridge by replacing its roof, siding, and flooring. On May 19, 1970, it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and today Missouri's Department of Natural Resources preserves it through the administration of the General John J. Pershing Boyhood Home State Historic Site.