The Medora Covered Bridge was built in 1875 by noted timber bridge builder J.J. Daniels to carry local traffic across the East Fork of the White River forty years before there was a state highway system. In the early twentieth century, route US 50 crossed the river here using this bridge, and later State Road 235 used it until 1972. It is the longest historic covered bridge in the nation, with a span of 431 feet between the abutment faces, plus shed extensions of 16 feet on each end beyond the actual bridge span. It is also Indiana’s last remaining three-span covered bridge. The bridge is a Burr Arch truss, combining timber arches with a stiffening truss in a system in which the arches greatly strengthen the truss and the truss keeps the arches in their proper curve. Daniels used oak for the bottom truss members, the vertical posts, and the deck, and yellow poplar for the rest of the structure. Some of the top truss members still show marks of hand-hewing, and wrought iron bolts and rods clamp the many pieces together. Joseph J. Daniels was born in SE Ohio in 1826. His father, Stephen Daniels, was a prominent carpenter and bridge builder and an agent of the pioneering bridge engineer Stephen Long. J.J. assisted his father and learned well as a young man, then began taking bridge commissions on his own at age twenty. Between 1847 and 1852 he built several bridges in Ohio. In 1853 he built a notable 600-foot-long covered bridge over the White River near Hazelton, IN, and in 1861 he moved to Parke County and went into business for himself, building the 207-foot-span Jackson Bridge that year. Fourteen years later he designed and built the Medora Bridge. He came to prefer the Burr Arch truss style and usually built that type unless required to use another. The robustness of his designs was widely respected, many considered him the best covered bridge builder in the state, and more than 53 covered bridges are known to have been built by Daniels.