Hemlock Bridge

Hemlock Bridge, built in 1857 in eastern Fryeburg, Maine, carries Hemlock Bridge Road over the Old Course Saco River near Kezar Lake. It is the last surviving 19th-century covered bridge of the seven once built in Fryeburg and remains a working road bridge. The single-span Paddleford truss is 116 feet long and stands on granite block abutments above a channel that preserves part of the Saco River’s former route. That older course reflects a local engineering change begun in 1815, when residents secured a canal to bypass a long bend in the river, leaving this remnant channel and the crossings tied to it.

Fryeburg, Maine · United States