At the turn of the 20th century, wagonloads of settlers and supplies traveling along the old Oregon Central Military Wagon Road stopped here to board Amos D. Hyland's ferry to cross the Willamette River. As more and more settlers traveled the route, locals petitioned for a bridge to bypass Hyland's expensive ferry. In 1907, Lane County officials hired Oregon bridge builder "Nels" Roney to construct a covered bridge. The original Lowell Bridge lasted over 30 years, until increased wear and damage from truck traffic prompted replacement. The old bridge was replaced in 1945 with a new bridge built by Lane County bridge foreman Walt Sorenson. It was covered two years later. The bridge's size, with a 165-foot span and 24-foot width, was designed to accommodate the heavy logging-truck traffic of that era. Wood used to construct the bridge likely came from the nearby Willamette National Forest. Longtime area residents remember the days when trucks waited in line, three or four at a time, to haul their loads of Douglas-fir through the bridge toward Springfield. In 1953, the Army Corps of Engineers was finishing construction of Dexter Dam, just downstream of the Lowell Bridge. When complete, the dam would create a reservoir that would threaten the bridge. Guided by engineers, Walt Sorenson supervised the raising of the bridge seven feet. Their calculations proved accurate, and the reservoir has never risen closer than two feet from the bottom of the bridge.