Seven successive bridges crossed Clarks Ferry beginning with the first, built between 1827 and 1828 as a combined vehicular, pedestrian, animal transport, and utility structure. Made from more than 1 million board feet of white pine lumber, it was 2,088 feet long in 10 spans, nine of 212 feet and one of 180 feet, but a flood destroyed it in less than 10 years. The second bridge, constructed in 1837, had two galleries that allowed mule or horse teams to move simultaneously in both directions on the downstream side; it lasted until 1846, when a flood carried away the eastern span, and fire destroyed the rest two months later. The third bridge, built between 1846 and 1847, was described by Philip Hone, Mayor of New York City, as a long bridge of light and delicate construction on solid masonry piers, and it was destroyed by fire on September 10th and 11th of 1850. The fourth bridge was constructed between 1851-52 and became the property of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company in 1857, but a violent windstorm in March 1859 destroyed nine of its ten sections, all of which were replaced later that year, creating a virtually new fifth bridge. Bridge #5 endured from 1859 until 1924-1925, when it was dismantled in favor of a modern concrete vehicular bridge; in 1888 it had the reputation of being the longest wooden covered bridge in the world, and it was a toll bridge, as its predecessors probably were and as its successor was. The sixth bridge, a concrete-arch two-lane bridge, was completed by July 1925 and remained a toll bridge until May 15, 1957, when the state abolished tolls on 10 bridges including Clarks Ferry. Construction of the seventh bridge was underway by March 18, 1985, and on June 5, 1986, the arches of bridge #6 were demolished, ending the era of the concrete-arch bridge and following the earlier era of wooden covered bridges that had crossed here from 1827 to 1925.